Chapter 13

Nokomis was hurting. Her upper body hurt the most and she desperately wanted to relieve the pressure on her back. She knew that she had been sunburned because she had taken her purple camp shirt off when she had become overheated, but something wasn't right. Nokomis' head hurt too and she was confused as she tried to open her eyes.

Slowly, painfully, Nokomis opened her eyes to reveal a small room with candles burning. She noticed that she was in a bed with a sheet pulled over her. As she lifted her hand to pull the bed sheet back she saw that it was bright red.

"Yep, I'm sunburned alright," she told herself as she carefully lifted the covers off of her body.

Nokomis immediately dropped the sheet back down.

"And naked too except for my underwear," she said. "Where are my clothes?"

Carefully Nokomis sat up, holding the sheet to her chest with her left hand. She was hurting from her sunburn but her back felt a little better now that she wasn't lying on it. Looking to her left she saw nothing but floor and wall. In front of her was a wooden door that was closed with two candle sconces hanging on the wall on either side of the door.

The iron design was simple yet elegant. A single long iron piece hung on the wall and at the end, broke off into two parts that curved up and then out, away from each other to end halfway up the original iron piece. On each end of the branch was a plate and holder for a taper candle. The four candles were off white, almost yellow in color, as Nokomis turned her head to the right. She sucked in a breath when she saw the scene before her.

Before Nokomis sat a stone fireplace with a fire that had long since gone out. Only the ashes glowed red waiting to be fed more wood that sat on the hearth just out of its reach. Next to this was a small wooden table with a pitcher, basin, and three pillar candles sitting on it. But that wasn't what had startled her the most. It was the young man that sat on the hearth next to the fire with his legs pulled up to his chest, his chin resting on his knees, arms wrapped around his legs, sound asleep.

He had on a blue top and black pants with glasses that were funny looking. The ends that went to his ears were not one straight piece but a string that attached to the top and bottom of the round frames and then looped around his ears. Somehow he looked vaguely familiar and Nokomis was sure that she had seen this man before but couldn't remember where. Her head hurt her and she really wanted some aspirin, water, and food in that order.

"Hello," she called out to the young man.

Nokomis saw him raise his head up off of his knees and open his eyes. Smiling he dropped his hands from around his legs and turned his knees to his right. In this way he was able to kneel by her side. Nokomis now realized that she wasn't in a bed but was on a mattress that was on the floor of the small room.

Nokomis watched the young, dark haired man that looked a little older than her pour water from the pitcher that sat in the basin off to his right into a wooden cup. She tried to picture him in a different setting but her confused mind could not.

Placing the pitcher back into the basin he came forward and held the wooden cup to her lips talking to her in a language that clearly wasn't English.

"Thank you," she said as she watched his face turn into a frown, sipping the water he offered her.

"Anata wa nihongo ga hanasenai?" he asked taking the cup away from her mouth, clearly confused at what she was saying.

"Stupid!" Nokomis scolded herself, "you're clearly not in the states." She remembered that she had accompanied her mother to China and switching to Mandarin she tried again.

"Xiexie."

The young man just shook his head as he watched the girl take another sip of the water that he offered her. She clearly was a foreigner from her speech, yet she acted a bit different from them and he liked that.

He had seen the foreign women before when they came ashore, all prim and proper like. Those women would cover themselves up with layers of clothes and use umbrellas when the sun was out. He had been witness to one that had fainted from the heat and the man that she was with had cut open her tight fitting top called a corset, he found out later, to allow her to breathe again.

When the woman regained her senses she had screamed loudly and tried to cover herself up with her corset again, clearly not wanting to be seen without any clothes on. He didn't understand because the woman clearly had on a white, long sleeve top under the tight binding corset.

Yes, the girl before him was different. He turned away from her and refilled her cup before turning back to offer it again to her. She wasn't screaming at least, even thought it was clear that she was trying to cover her naked body up with the sheet.

He knew that he would have to explain about her clothes sooner or later, but first things first. He wanted to know her name.

"Onamae wa nan desuka?" he asked.

Nokomis didn't understand. He was clearly asking her something but he wasn't speaking Mandarin. "It could be a variation," she thought, "maybe a different providence in China." How could she make him understand?

She sipped the water he offered to her and thought back to what her mother had taught her when she was trying to learn Mandarin for the first time.

"The more basic a word is the better the chance that it will be understood," Melody told her daughter when Nokomis was frustrated one day. "For example: 'Big' is a better choice than trying to use 'Enormous' and 'Make' is easier to pronounce than 'Manufacture'."

That was it! Nokomis grabbed the wooden cup out of the young man's hand, startling him as she did so.

"Sorry," she said in Mandarin, knowing he clearly wouldn't understand her but smiled at him anyway.

Carefully transferring the cup to her left hand that held the sheet she dipped the fingers of her right hand into the cup and brought them forth, water dripping down her fingers and into the cup.

"Shui," Nokomis said in Mandarin showing him the water dripping off of her fingers.

"How do you break down a language into its simplest form?" her teacher had asked in a lecture one day at school. "You break it down into its elementary components; like cup, plate, fork, then build on that."

Nokomis was hoping that her teacher was right as she said the word for water again, taking her right hand to drip the water into the young man's palm that he held out to her. He clearly was confused, his face screwed up into a frown watching the water drip into his palm.

"Shui?" he repeated quietly to himself.

The young man looked up into the girl's eyes. She was clearly trying to talk to him but he didn't understand. She dipped her fingers into the wooden cup again and took them out, letting the water run off of them and into his palm.

"Shui," she pleaded trying to make him understand.

He looked away from her face to his right palm, held outstretched to catch the water. Shui she called it. Then it hit him. She was asking him what he called water.

"Mizu!" he nearly shouted at her looking up into her face smiling.

Now it was her turn to look confused.

"Mizu," he said more slowly as he took the wooden cup from her and repeated her action. Dipping the fingers of his right hand into the cup, he pulled them out as he let the water drip into her open palm this time.

"Mizu," she repeated rolling the word around in her mouth.

"Okay," Nokomis said to herself, "clearly not Chinese." But the young man looked oriental to her.

She grabbed the wooden cup back and drained the contents in one swallow.

Holding the now empty cup out to him she asked in Mandarin, "Bei?"

"Bei?" he repeated trying to figure out what she was asking.

"Bei?" she asked again carefully tapping the wooden cup before giving it back to him.

He rolled the cup around in his hands. "Was she asking for the word wood?" he wondered. "No. Think simple," he told himself. Then he caught on to her game.

"Kappu," he said proudly holding the cup up to show her he got it.

Nokomis smiled at him. Now he was understanding what she was trying to do.

"Pian?" she questioned flapping the white sheet back and forth.

He smiled. "Shito," he said placing his left hand onto hers, pressing the sheet back against her body.

He liked seeing her naked body flash before his eyes, but thought that she didn't want to show him her beautiful breasts just yet.

"Please," he told her in his native language knowing she wouldn't understand, "I can see your breasts when you do that," he said pointing to her chest with his right hand.

"Oh," Nokomis said in English slightly embarrassed that she hadn't thought about that earlier, the color rising to her cheeks.

The young man removed his hand from hers and furled his brow. Here she was speaking the foreigner's language once again to him. Clearly she had come from the ships in the harbor, but she also seemed to know a different language too. Maybe if he could find one of the men from the ships that spoke Japanese he could bring them here to help him.

His thoughts were interrupted as the girl was off talking again. Pointing behind him to the fireplace she asked, "Huo?"

The young man looked behind him to the embers that glowed red. He grabbed a wooden log that lay on the hearth and carefully placed it on the embers. Next he blew softly to send the embers up to form into sparks that slowly caught a hold of the wood. When he had the fire finally going again he turned back around.

"Kasai," he said pointing at the now roaring fire.

"Kasai," she repeated smiling. They were finally communicating.

He smiled back at her this time taking the lead. Taking the pitcher out of the basin he held it up to her as she told him the word that she knew and he would then tell her his word. The pair continued this until he heard her stomach making noises. She was hungry.

"Sorry," she said in English knowing he wouldn't understand, "I'm hungry," she said pantomiming food being placed into her mouth with her right hand.

Somehow he understood as he rose up and walked behind her mattress. He returned with her clothes looking at his feet as he placed them on the ground.

"Sori," he said quietly knowing now that she was going to find out about her clothes.

He watched her as she sorted through the pile taking the black and white material that she had wrapped around her breasts when he had first met her. Holding it up she looked at him with a frown.

"I had to cut it off of you," he said pointing to the frayed material in the middle. "We didn't understand how foreign clothes work."

Nokomis didn't understand him but she could tell that he was clearly worried about her bra that had been cut between the two cups in front. Sighing she placed it back into the pile. "Maybe he doesn't know how to take one off," she thought, "he is rather young looking."

Nokomis pulled her purple camp shirt next out of the pile. "Well," she said out loud in English, "at least this is in one piece."

Nokomis carefully put the shirt on before she dropped the sheet into her lap and buttoned it up. The material hurt her when it touched her burnt back.

The young man watched as she pulled the shirt on. She clearly was in pain when the material touched her skin, as she would clench her teeth and make a noise, but what fascinated him the most was the way that she fastened the top closed. Small holes on one side that she slid over white bone on the other. The top reminded him of the foreign men and their big heavy tops they called coats with shinny round things like hers.

Reaching out he pointed to the round white boney circle.

"What are these?" he asked hoping she would understand.

Nokomis looked down to where he was pointing. She didn't know the Mandarin word.

"Button," she told him in English as he repeated the word to himself.

Nokomis quickly unbuttoned one of the buttons on her top and pointed to the slit in the material on the other side.

"Buttonhole," she told him as she let him finger the material and slit in the top.

She didn't understand. Why wouldn't he know what a button or buttonhole was? They weren't living in the stone age days and even if they were buttons had been around back then, only the people used them as decorations. It wasn't until 1200 A.D. that the button was used in Europe to actually close a garment.

When the young man sat back after having buttoned her top closed, Nokomis took and lifted up her pants by the waist only to have them fall apart.

"What the…," she broke off.

Now she was mad! Her favorite pants that converted into shorts were ripped up both side seams. How could he do this to her?! Nokomis turned to release her wrath and a few choice swear words on the young man but when she saw him she stopped dead in her tracks.

On his knees, face to the ground, hands spread out before him, the young man was clearly ready for her punishment as he kept repeating one word over and over again.

"Sori, Sori, Sori," he whispered over and over into the ground waiting for her punishment that never came.

Nokomis couldn't be mad and for the first time in her life her heart went out to someone besides her parents. Something was going on and she couldn't figure it out. "Must be the heat stroke," she thought as she reached out a hand to touch the top of the young man's head.

Flinching under her touch she quickly pulled her hand away. Clearly he had been expecting her to do some kind of harm to him. How could she do that? It was a simple mistake about the pants, she told herself.

Carefully, slowly, Nokomis turned and laid on her belly facing him. She winched as she came into contact with the mattress but regained her composure. Reaching out her hands she took the young man's outstretched hands into hers. She hung tight when he pulled back. Slowly he raised his head to look at her.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly looking into his brown eyes weakly smiling at him.

"Sori," he told her again dropping his face back to the floor.

"Sori," she repeated to herself realizing now what the word meant.

Sori must mean sorry but she wished she knew what language he was speaking to her. Nokomis's stomach grumbled again and she carefully pushed herself up onto her hands. She was famished now and still thirsty but worst of all her whole body ached. She really needed some aspirin but had no way of asking for it, but she could ask for water again.

"Mizu?" she asked pointing to the pitcher and wooden cup that sat on the table.

The young man looked up again. Clearly she wasn't going to punish him and he rose up onto his knees to quickly fill the wooden cup for her. Handing the cup to her he could see no hatred in her eyes.

"Xiexie," she told him in Mandarin taking the cup from him.

The young man thought for a moment about what she was saying and then told her the word he knew.

"Arigato," he said.

"Arigato," Nokomis repeated.

The word sounded familiar but she couldn't place it just yet as her stomach once again loudly protested its desire for food. Well there was no way she was getting out of bed for food with no pants. She smiled and handed back the empty cup to him.

Pantomiming food being placed into her mouth with her right hand she hoped he would understand.

Nodding his head he pointed at her and spoke to her as he stood up and left the room. Nokomis could only hope that he had gone for food and was relieved when he came back into the room carrying a plate and two wooden chopsticks. He spoke again to her holding up the chopsticks. Setting the plate down on the table he showed her how the chopsticks worked before placing them down next to the plate of food.

Crossing to her side, he carefully helped her to her feet holding the sheet around her bottom half as he did so. Gathering the sheet up, so that she wouldn't trip on it, he helped her walk to the table and carefully sit down on a pillow that was there.

Nokomis thanked him and then picked up the chopsticks. They weren't like the disposable type that she often got in the restaurants. The ends of these were painted blue.

Taking one chopstick, like her father had taught her, she placed it into her hand so that the blue end was sitting snug against the inside of her thumb and forefinger. The end was held on the top of her ring finger. This chopstick would never move in this position. Picking up the other chopstick she held it like a pencil but with her thumb strait, not bent.

Nokomis opened the chopsticks with her middle finger, and taking a scoop of the rice that sat on her plate, she closed the chopsticks with her forefinger before bringing them to her mouth.

The young man breathed a sigh of relief. He had been concerned about her using the chopsticks. The foreigners that he had seen had had a hard time using them to eat with. Clearly she knew how the chopsticks worked and could use them well he noticed, as she picked up a single grain of rice from off of her plate.

"You are very beautiful," he said to her knowing that she wouldn't understand and liking it that way.

It was too soon to show her how he felt and it was also too soon after his lover had died. His anguish over loosing Shino had been replaced by this girl in his care.

When he had carried her down the hill to the temple he didn't know if the nuns would let him back inside. They hadn't at first, when he had approached the large wooden door and knocked loudly on it. After seeing his charge, burnt and sleeping in his arms, the nuns had allowed him use of the room off of the kitchen.

He had followed the older nun to the small room where they had placed the girl onto the futon. When the nun went to remove the girl's clothes that was when they discovered the same thing. The foreign clothes had strange closures to them. The purple kimono looking top had been easy to remove but the black and white material had not. Neither he, nor the nun, had found the end where she had tied it and so he had taken his wakizashi sword out and carefully placing it between her breasts he had sliced up to remove the item from her chest.

The tan hakama's were also a problem. They were not tied in the front or back. He saw only metal that held tight when he tried to pull them apart. Again he had taken his sword and sliced the sides away to remove them from her. The white cloth on her bottom they had left alone.

"Your ward wears strange clothes," the nun had told him lighting the candles because the sun had set.

"Yes," he had replied, pulling the sheet up to her chest and sweeping a finger across her face to remove a strand of stray hair. "I believe she is from the foreign ships docked at Nagasaki."

"Then how did she get to Edo?" the nun had asked him shaking the slim stick, that she had used to light the candles with, out before she placed it on the table.

"I don't know," he had replied.

"I guess when she wakes up you can ask her," the nun had said leaving the room and closing the door shut behind her.

The girl's tapping him on his arm brought him back to the present. Pointing to the food on her plate she asked him if the meat was fish.

"Unagi," he told her.

She took a bite of the eel and immediately made a face, after chewing it, before spitting it back out onto her plate.

"Sori," she told him, "it doesn't taste right."

He only smiled at her wishing that he could understand what she was trying to say to him.

Nokomis stifled a yawn as she placed her chopsticks down on the table, the eel left uneaten. The young man seemed to understand as he held out a hand to her. Nokomis took his hand and let him help her up. Walking back the few feet to her futon she let him help her lie down again.

"Arigato," she told him as she lied on her right side and let him place the sheet back over her body.

"Anata no kangei," the young man said as he took up his post back by the fire.

He watched her as she tried to get comfortable and remembered he still didn't know her name. There was only one way he knew and he hoped she would understand.

"Watashi no namae wa Takeda Jin desu," he said pointing at himself.

"Sori," she said shaking her head.

Using her hands she placed them wide apart and shook her head no. Nokomis then brought her hands close together with only a small gap between them. When she had done this she nodded her head yes.

He watched her and nodded his head in agreement. If they were to understand each other they were going to have to do it slowly, bit by bit. Rethinking how he could ask her name he pointed back to himself.

"Takeda Jin," he proudly told her before pointing her way, "To?" he asked.

Nokomis just shook her head some more, "Sori," she told him and indicated with her hands and even smaller gap.

He understood and pointed at himself.

"Jin," he told her.

"Jin," she repeated pointing at him.

"Hai," he said nodding his head yes, "Jin."

Jin pointed his finger at her hoping she would understand.

She did and pointing her finger at her chest she said, "Nokomis."

"No-ko-mus," he asked trying the English word for the first time.

Nokomis realized that her name must be hard to pronounce for him and so she tried to break it down.

"No-ko-mis," she told him slowly.

"Noko," he replied clearly not getting the ending of her name.

"Yes," she said in English. "Hai," she said again, remembering him saying that to her.

"Noko," he repeated pointing at her.

"Noko-MIS," she tried again.

"Noko," he said again a big smile upon his face.

She gave up trying to explain and let him go with just the first two symbols of her name.

Nokomis smiled at him clearly liking the nickname that he had just given her. No one in her family had called her anything but Nokomis growing up.

Her family. Nokomis sighed. This wasn't what she thought heaven was like, yet she wondered if she really was dead after all. She had trusted her Aunt Jean, but when she had stepped through the portal she thought it was taking her to heaven. According to her father, Uncle Egon, and cousin Echo everyone there spoke the same language. So why was Jin speaking something she couldn't understand? Nokomis closed her eyes. She was tired, maybe the answers would come in the morning.

Jin watched as Noko closed her eyes. He smiled at his new charge. At least he knew her name now even though it sounded strange. Tomorrow if she was feeling up to it they would start for Nagasaki. Jin knew that the answer lie there, and if he was going to understand anything that she said he was going to need help.