Kensuke’s Kingdom

Stella Artois barked her farewells at them, and at every boat we passed in The Solent. But as we were sailing out past the Isle of Wight, she fell strangely quiet. Maybe she sensed, as we did, that there was no turning back now. This was not a dream. We were off around the world. It was real, really real.

But I was happy to get back to the Peggy Sue. I missed her while I was gone, like I miss Eddie.

I’ve been sending him cards, funny animal cards, if I can find them. I sent him one of a wombat. I saw a wombat too, and hundreds of possums and tons of kangaroos. And they’ve got white cockatoos in Australia like we’ve got sparrows at home — millions of them.

But out here it’s gulls again. Wherever we’ve been in the world there’s always gulls.

“Water, we’ll need water. But so do those monkeys, right? We’ve just got to find it, that’s all. And there must be food, too –– fruit or nuts, something. Whatever it is that they eat, we’ll eat.”

It helped to speak my thoughts out loud to Stella, helped to calm the panic that came over me now in waves. More than anything, it was Stella’s companionship that helped me through those first hours on the island.

The jungle droned and cackled and croaked, and all night long the mosquitoes were at me, too. They whined in my ears and drove me crazy. I held my hands over my ears to shut out the sound of them. I curled myself around Stella, tried to forget where I was, to lose myself in my dreams. I remembered then that it was my birthday, and thought of my last birthday back at home with Eddie and Matt, and the barbecue we’d had in the garden, how the hot dogs had smelled so good. I slept at last.

The next morning […] It took me some moments to remember where I was, and all that had happened to me. I was suddenly overwhelmed by one cruel reality after another: my utter aloneness, my separation from my mother and father, and the dangers all around me.

It wasn’t only the old man’s laws or the howling of the monkeys […] that prevented me from venturing into his side of the island; it was the orangutan, too. […] I kept wondering, too, what other creatures might lurk unseen, waiting to ambush me in the dark damp of the forest. If the constant jungle talk was anything to go by, the place was crawling with all sorts of dreadful creatures.

Just the thought of the orangutan and the terrors of the unknown in the forest were quite enough to deter me, enough to stifle both my curiosity and my courage. So I kept largely to my beach, my cave, and the forest track up to my hilltop.

A large, translucent white jellyfish was floating right beside me, its tentacles groping at me. I tried to swim away, but it came after me, hunting me. I was stung again, in my foot this time. The agony was immediate and excruciating. It permeated my entire body like one continuous electric shock. I felt my muscles going rigid. I kicked for the shore, but I could not do it. My legs seemed paralyzed, my arms, too. I was sinking, and there was nothing I could do about it. I saw the jellyfish poised for the kill above me now. I screamed, and my mouth filled with water. I was choking. I was going to die, I was going to drown, but I did not care. I just wanted the pain to stop. Death I knew would stop it.

It was a picture of a tree, a tree in blossom. His smile said everything. “For you. Japan tree,” he said. “I, Japanese person.” After that, Kensuke showed me all the paintings he did, even the ones he later washed off. They were all in black-and-white wash, of orangutans, gibbons, butterflies, dolphins, and birds, and fruit. Only very occasionally did he keep one, storing it away carefully in one of his chests. He did keep several of the tree paintings, I noticed, always of a tree in blossom, a “Japan tree,” as he called it, and I could see he took particular joy in showing me these. It was clear he was allowing me to share something very dear to him. I felt honored by that.

Every day, dawn to dusk, I translated the world around him into English. We did what we had always done, but now I talked all the while and he would echo every word, every phrase he wanted to. […] Sometimes as I enunciated a new word, I noticed that his eyes would light up. He would be nodding and smiling almost as if he recognized the word, as if he was greeting an old friend. […] Now at last we could talk more easily to each other, the long silence in which our friendship had been forged was over. It had never been a barrier between us, but it had been limiting.

“Soon engine stop, but ship not go down. Big wind come, big storm. I think I die for sure now. But sea take ship and bring me here on this island. Ship come onto beach, and still I am not dead.

“Very soon I find food. I find water also. I live like beggar man for long while. Inside I feel bad person. I think, all my friends dead, all my family dead, and I alive. I not want to live. But soon I meet orangutans. They very kind to me. This very beautiful, very peaceful place. No war here, no bad people. I say to myself, Kensuke, you very lucky person to be alive. Maybe you stay here.”

“It stop when it stop, Micasan […]. You cannot make rain stop by wanting it to stop. Besides, rain very good thing. Keep fruit growing. Keep stream flowing. Keep monkeys alive, you also, me also.”

“I am too old for that new world you tell me about. It is very exciting world, but it is not my world. My world was Japan, long time ago. And now my world is here. I think about it for long time. If Kimi is alive, if Michiya is alive, then they think I am dead long time ago. I would be like ghost coming home. I am not same person. They not same, either. And, besides, I have family here, orangutan family. Maybe killer men come again. Who look after them then? No, I stay on my island. This is my place. This is Kensuke’s Kingdom. Emperor must stay in his kingdom, look after his people. Emperor does not run away. Not honorable thing to do.”