A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton

small bamboo box in the other. Yuko wrote she had never seen such a face before. It were as if sunlight had burned the woman’s features away to nothing more than clean lines of brow and cheek and chin, a perfect beauty. Yuko made her way to the main road and waited until she was on the edge of the path before she turned to watch the woman run her hand across Sato’s chest and smooth the lapel of his jacket. The woman folded her parasol and he took it from her. As the sun slipped behind a cloud they headed into the dark, cool interior of the hospital.
‘As I made my way home, I realised right there, right then, that the world had changed irrevocably for me. I felt some new sensation, a spike of joy in my heart. This man, cold metal on my flesh, hands on my skin. What to say? He feels like a secret. The world has shrunk and yet expanded at the same time. I do not understand why but it exhilarates me. In my mind only he and I exist. I begin to count the hours until I see him again.’

A Charm
    Omamori: Many Japanese people still carry a religious amulet, which they buy at a shrine or temple. It is made of a strip of paper, plastic or wood, on which some blessing or prayer is written. It is put in a small attractive cloth bag to be worn around the neck, carried in a purse, attached to a wallet, or hung in a car. People carry omamori, believing or expecting that it will protect them from misfortune, or that it will bring forth divine help in realising their wishes.
    Yuko and Sato had agreed to meet by the terminal office at the pier. She said he was not hard to spot among the fishermen and old women who were waiting for the boat to dock. He stood with his back to her, dressed in a panama hat, cream linen trousers and a white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. Before she could reach him, he turned round, and the rawness of her reaction made her breathless. She had seen romance at the cinema, in movies imported from Hollywood, but she watched those actresses and saw nothing of her own life. She was no Egyptian queen, or Broadway star or wife of a tsarist. She was a girl but this was her first experience of desire and it intoxicated her. Sato handed her a ticket and revealed they were going to Iōjima, a tiny island, thirty minutes from the city. They walked onto the gangway of the berthed ferry. Midweek, most of the seats on the lower deck were empty. Theytook the stairs up to the open air of the upper level. The engine kicked into life and the boat pulled away from the land and growled its way out to sea. Sato disappeared down the flight of steps and Yuko turned to watch Nagasaki grow smaller and smaller. The factories that lined the harbour shrank and faded against the darkening hills and brightening sky. She had never seen her home from this perspective, slowly reduced to such insignificant proportions.
    The doctor returned with two glasses. He offered her a glass of barley tea and she sipped the chilled liquid.
‘He sat close enough for me to sense the sliver of air that separated us. He has that effect of magnifying everything around him: colours, noise, senses.’
She watched him put his glass down on the bench and light a cigarette. He leaned against the seat with his hat tipped back and his face to the sun.
‘I dislike the smell of tobacco, but today the odour, mixed with the salt spray of the sea, gave me a heady pleasure. He closed his eyes against the rays and I studied his profile. I have never been alone with a man in this intimate way. My gaze fell from his parted lips, down his neck to the triangle of skin between the collar of his open shirt, down the crisp, white material to his waistband and down farther still. I took him all in. When I glanced up, I could see he was watching me with an unknowable look.’
Embarrassed, Yuko moved to the back of the boat, but Sato followed her. He placed his elbows on the rail. Beneath them, the propellers spewed out a trail of white foam.
    They