A character - perhaps - from my novel?

For the final writing exercise of the week, based on the tagline “I don’t feel”, I’ve chosen one of the characters – perhaps – from my prospective novel, a Japanese fisherman. I like the mood of this piece.

Week 1, Exercise 6, "I don't feel"

I have lived here nearly all my adult life, but it's not home. Instead, I feel the pull of Japan, of Wakayama prefecture. Fragments of uninvited memory swarm my mind, and I forget this hot red alien land. Instead I see the rain, cold and grey, plonking in the water barrel outside my father's cottage. Yukiko and I, playing hide and seek in the green forest and rocky coves. The mists that smell of brine and kelp.

Mother and father were poor fisherfolk, and my older brothers were drowned when the starving village sent the fleet to slaughter a cow whale and her calf and the outraged ocean spirits responded with a violent storm. So I came here when I was 15, to this land of red soil and pearls, of burning heat and cyclones.

Now, I am tender on one of Mr Rubin's ships, the Eliza. I feed the air hose to the diver Nakamura, who is captain of the Eliza, and interpret his tugs on the life line from 25 fathoms down. One tug, go left. Three sharp tugs, bring me up quickly. I tell the crew what to do. I am a god, holding life in my hands. I have been tender for Nakamura for six years now. He is a good diver, strong but not foolish. Last season he collected six tonnes of pearl shell.

Mr Rubin is an Englishman, but different. Something called a Jew. This sets him apart from the other Englishmen, but I don't know why. He has a lovely daughter, Lida. She is six, and named after one of the white man's ancestors. Rubin has sad eyes, but when he looks at her, his smile softens into something soft and private, like the Buddhist monks in Wakayama prefecture.