Belka, Why Don't You Bark - By Hideo Furukawa Page 0,103

remained, all pure Hawaiians.

You had passed through the doldrums. But where were you? No one manned the rudder. You had drifted off course, yes, but in which direction? East? West? North? South?

Who knew?

November 11. You were starving.

The double canoe was still adrift.

Still being swept this way and that on the endless sea.

You sat at the prow, gazing, not up at the sky, but at the level horizon.

The Hawaiians caught a few fish every day. They gave you the innards. Tossed the offering to you at the prow.

You didn’t attack the humans. Why would you? You weren’t a wild, ferocious beast—you never had been. You would never have gone for them the way you did if they hadn’t tried to kill you, to turn you into food. So you sat there at the prow, starving.

Starving.

You were still starving on November 12, and on the thirteenth, and on the fourteenth. Your body felt oddly light. You couldn’t feel your weight. You were becoming invisible, you thought.

I’M INVISIBLE.

I’M AN INVISIBLE BITCH.

The fifteenth. You were almost dead. Dehydrated. You faded in and out of consciousness. But your eyes were open. The horizon. More horizon. More horizon. Finally, you became delirious. You thought of your family on Oahu. Back on that island on the twenty-first parallel north, the beagles. Four puppies. SO ADORABLE! SO CUTE! You hadn’t given birth to them yourself, true. But at that moment, in that muddled mental state, you floundered in the fantasy of being their mother. You were suckling them. Giving your teats to those four tiny pups to suck. MY DARLING CHILDREN! you shouted. FRUIT OF MY WOMB! You were growling. Uuuuurrr. And the mistaken memory was burning itself into your mind.

The sixteenth.

The seventeenth.

You felt the ocean. Yes, you could feel it. Surging beneath you. The canoe was your cradle. The Pacific Ocean occupies fully one third of the earth’s surface. You sensed its enormity. The double canoe had now drifted way off to the west of the planned route. It had passed south of the equator, but if it kept going in this direction, it would never reach Tahiti. If it kept going in this direction…it wouldn’t reach Tahiti or any of the Society Islands. It was heading for another island group. As it happened, another boat traveled regularly along more or less the same course. A cargo ship. You noticed it, way off on the horizon. AM I INVISIBLE? you asked yourself. You watched the silhouette as it grew progressively larger. AM I AN INVISIBLE BITCH?

NO, you told yourself. I’M NOT.

NO, I’M A MOTHER, you told yourself. Mistakenly.

The mistaken memory that had burned itself into your mind was what brought you to your feet, your teats aching with a mother’s love.

You stood up.

You sent out an SOS. Woof! Woof! Woof!

At three o’clock on November 17, 1975, local time, having crossed to the east of the international date line, the cargo ship picked you up. When you started barking at the prow, the sound brought the Hawaiians at the stern back to their senses—they, too, had been driven by extreme hunger into a state of delirium. For a moment they had simply gaped at the sight of hope moving across the ocean, there, right in front of them, and then they had started whistling, waving their arms. You didn’t wave, but you did wag your tail. The ship’s crew noticed you, and your thirty-eight-day nightmare voyage came to an end.

It was over. And where, Goodnight, were you now?

The cargo ship was on its way from the American mainland to a point on the fourteenth parallel south that was itself one of the United State’s unincorporated territories. The ship was headed for American Samoa. It would be taking on a large shipment of canned tuna on Tutuila, the main island in the archipelago. Approximately thirty percent of the American Samoan labor force worked in the canneries, packing and sending can after can of South Pacific tuna to the mainland. Shortly before the date changed from November 17 to November 18, the three men, now identified in the ship records as “survivors,” were taken ashore at Tutuila, after the ship docked in Pago Pago Harbor. The records noted, too, the presence of one dog, also a “survivor.” She was a German shepherd. You, Goodnight. You looked like a bag of bones. You were exhausted, both physically and spiritually. You were a dog of the fourteenth parallel south now, though it would take a few weeks for you to realize this.