Both kids couldn’t be better crewmembers. I really don't know what I would do without them. My wife will not pull her own weight, but if the kids manage to cover for her, I believe we will enjoy a fair open-sea cruise.
We will therefore sail longer than we first intended. This will now be a ten-day cruise, around the island of Torishima and back. Perhaps we can get as far south as the Ogasawara Islands? No. That will be next year's treat…
Reading the log up to this point, Kazuo already had a clear picture of the owner and his family. With a son in high school and a daughter in elementary, the owner and his wife had to be in their forties. The son belonged to a high school yachting club. The daughter, probably a fifth-or sixth-grader, was also crazy about sailing. Then there was the wife, who, being of genteel upbringing, did not enjoy life at sea. From what the log suggested, they were not only well-off but the very image of a happy family. Kazuo couldn't tell what the father did for a living, but he certainly didn't seem like a regular salaried employee if he could get ten consecutive days off work at this time of year and, of course, afford the upkeep of a luxury yacht. He had to be either the owner of his company or a successfully self-employed man.
As Kazuo read on, his envy subsided. The owner's unabashed love for his wife and children made it difficult for him to feel resentful toward the family and its privileged circumstances. The log, in fact, was invigorating to read and put Kazuo in a sunny mood. Here was the kind of family you never saw in the seaside fishing community where he'd grown up. His parents had fought constantly like alley cats, and they'd been too poor to afford a car, let alone a luxury yacht. As the second of four children, Kazuo had never been pushed by his parents to excel in either sports or studies; nor could he recall being praised by them, ever. His family had never spent so much as a single night away together on vacation. The life portrayed in the log reflected so many ideal family virtues, not one of which his own family had evidenced. Perhaps, it was just that this family was too perfect.
But by the third day out of port, the idyllic voyage was seeing signs of trouble, if that wasn't an overdramatic way of putting it. The father was beginning to get bad vibes about something and it was communicated in the pages of his log.
July 23, Sunday. Cloudy, occasional rain…
It may have been a coincidence, but I'm not sure. I do feel uneasy about this sort of thing when we're out at sea. I wish she hadn 't mentioned the dream at all.
When Yoko described the dream she'd had last night, my wife gasped and fell silent. She reacts badly to things of this nature. She must have had the same dream.
Although I can't be sure, I think I had the same dream too. I can't be more precise because I simply have no clear recollection of it. Perhaps, as Yoko recounted her dream, I came to feel that I'd also had the dream. I simply can't say.
Nothing could be as appalling as seeing your family, your dearest loved ones, drown in the sea before your very eyes and finding yourself unable to lift a single finger to save them. If that weren’t 't bad enough, the sensation of having pushed them over yourself lingers in yours hands. Why, why? I cannot understand. It's the last dream anyone would want to have! Maybe the dream was born of fear. The terror of losing loved ones becomes so obsessive that you come to glimpse the worst possible scenario. Let that stand as the interpretation. Enough! I'd rather not think about it again …
It was clear to Kazuo what the writer was saying. A discussion of the previous night's dreams revealed that every member of the family had had the exact same dream the night before. Each had pushed the others into the sea with their own hands.
The log then went on at length to describe how smoothly the voyage was going. The writer was attempting to dispel the uncanny dream with a forced tone of cheerfulness, and Kazuo just skimmed these pages.
July 24, Monday. Fair, N wind 3-4 m, Temp. 30°C
Yoko made another strange remark today. She has a habit of doing this and it's beginning to annoy me. She seems convinced that she has some strange powers. Such nonsense must be the fad at school. She was probably scaring her classmates with that kind of talk at the school outing before summer vacation. The scene isn 't all that difficult to imagine. I know Yoko shared a room with three others. When it got dark, the silly girl must have told them, 'There's someone else in this room.' Hinting that there was a fifth 'presence' managed to scare the others. And so now she's trying the same trick on us. It's the kind of thing she would do.
Listen, Yoko. There are only the jour of us on this boat. There is no fifth presence here or anything of the kind. Last year, when I brought one of my friends along, you didn’t like it, did you? You said you had nothing against him but that it tired you having to be on your best behaviour all the time. So I planned this cruise for us to be all by ourselves, just the four of us. Have you got that? The only ones here on this boat are the four of us, the family. Just as you wanted…
Although there was no exact indication of when this entry was made, it was probably at night. After all, the log came to an abrupt end with the following few sentences.
… Tomorrow morning we'll enter the waters south of Torishima and begin our cruise around the island. We must thank God for this excellent weather and calm voyage.? 1 just heard someone scream. Takahisa is now on watch. He probably saw a shark's fin cutting through the water. Such a sight is certainly not comforting, especially in the moonlight. Now that I think about it, today at dusk…
At this point, something no doubt caught the writer's attention, for the sentence wasn't finished. He must have abandoned the log to go investigate.
As the captain was making this entry, his son stood on watch, while his wife and daughter were probably asleep.
The log recorded what the daughter had said earlier that day. Yoko had apparently tried to persuade her father that there was some other 'presence' aboard the cruiser. Her father had dismissed her concerns as childish nonsense and later chided her in the log. The daughter seemed to be fond of making remarks that hinted of the occult.
Closing the leather covers of the log, Kazuo threw it onto the table. According to the entries, something had happened on July 24th - two nights ago. The four of them had either vanished that night or been swept overboard the next morning, though the details of this weren't clear. Two things bothered Kazuo now that he'd read the log. The first was that the entire family of four had apparently had the same dream at the same time. The second was that the presence of someone other than the family members had been sensed by at least one passenger. Otherwise, the log spoke of nothing unusual. It seemed a faithful description of a smooth voyage.
Kazuo took a second bottle of wine from the refrigerator. He needed to get a little more drunk if he wanted to sleep that night.