by R. T. Kaelin
Kinjin stared at the beautiful color of the bamboo for a long time, even though the speed of the typhoon was rebuilding to deadly proportions.
He made his way into the Sun Royal through its shattered front and hid within an empty banquet hall. As the storm howled its fury and beat against the building, Kinjin huddled in the darkness and listened to the song that still played in his head, still tugged at his soul.
And he smiled.
* *** *
After the typhoon passed over and continued toward Pusan and the rest of South Korea, Kinjin remained in Kagoshima to do what he could for his mother’s relatives. As the city returned to a semblance of order, he tried to find news of the monks, but no one had seen them—no one had even heard of such a thing.
The whole time, the shakuhachi’s song continued to nip at Kinjin—not the notes themselves, or even the melody, but the sense of balance he’d felt when the monk had played it, the same sense of balance he’d felt from the monk while talking to him.
Kinjin’s mother had tried to teach him the shakuhachi when he was young, but he’d been horrible at it. Still, he understood the basics, enough that he could ask his great-uncle to teach him the song. He had little trouble with the song itself, for no matter what he did, it always replayed in his mind as perfectly as when the monk had released it to the wind. But when he finally learned it, he felt none of those emotions he’d felt on the day of the typhoon. It felt every bit as hollow as his life had for the last four years.
A few months after the typhoon, Kinjin knew he had to leave. His relatives were well enough set, and Sakurajima had provided no solace whatsoever. If anything, it only made his memories that much more painful. No, he had to leave. He had to find those monks. They would know how to help him. They’d have to.
He said his goodbyes and flew west to Mongolia. He knew a little Mongolian, and picking up new languages had always come easily to him; within the first few months of hiking around the country, he knew enough to get by.
His first hope of finding the monks came in Havirga, where some men at a monastery said they recognized the song. He wandered northwest and took to playing the song on street corners in the cities and villages, hoping someone would recognize it. Most people simply passed on by, pretending he wasn’t there, and only three people in four months admitted they’d heard the song, but their recollections of the source contradicted one another.
One day, Kinjin found a fat monk wearing coke-bottle glasses who had the same rooster-pig-snake tattoo as the flute player had. He asked the monk what it meant.
“It means to take responsibility, young man.”
He tried to walk on, but Kinjin had stopped him. “I don’t understand.”
“Greed, anger, and delusion,” he said while pointing in turn to the rooster, the snake, and the pig. “You alone reap their fruit; you alone control their hold on your heart.”
Kinjin considered those words over and over again during the next few months, but they never settled. He wasn’t greedy. He admitted to being angry over his parents’ deaths, but he never took it out on anybody else. And he was one of the sanest people he knew. If anybody was based in reality, Kinjin was.
After six fruitless months of searching, Kinjin realized he could travel for the rest of his life and still never find the monks. They had sounded Mongolian, but he wasn’t at all sure they lived there.
It was already June, and the new typhoon season had begun to build. He studied the typhoons—their paths, their scales, their births and deaths. Typhoon Yomo had been a Category 4 with winds over two hundred kilometers per hour. He studied its path from inception as a tropical storm to eventual death near Changchun, China.
Kinjin wondered if the monks chose the typhoon for the rain in the eye. Or maybe something about Kagoshima had attracted them, but he soon discovered the storms usually formed further south and struck the Philippines or Vietnam or Malaysia. After debating various possibilities, Kinjin finally settled on the size and limited his search to Category 3s and 4s.
Three weeks later, a tropical storm formed to the east of China and the Philippines. As it trekked westward, it gathered strength and tropical storm Goshen achieved typhoon strength.
After the eye—and the worst of the winds—passed Manila, Kinjin paid through the nose to find a pilot willing to fly him to Kuala Lumpur, where the eye would apparently strike land. From there, he took buses northeast to the coast, using a weather radio to follow the storm’s progress. After adjusting several times, Kinjin found himself in Songkhla, Thailand a half-day later.
In the late afternoon, he stood on another rise, taller than the one in Kagoshima, looking down on the shoreline. To the west, nearly colorless under the low-hanging clouds, was Thale Luang, a round lake that drained further north into the South China Sea. The wind rattled the trees as the waves played over the sea’s dark green water.
By now the shakuhachi had become an old friend. Kinjin retrieved it from his canvas book bag and began to play, half-expecting another flute to start playing along with his. He almost felt the monks walking up behind him. But the only sounds that met his song were those of the oncoming storm.
The high winds would have fouled any normal flute, but Kinjin had long ago realized the shakuhachi was special. It was nearly impossible to play it poorly, and wind, no matter how strong, never seemed to affect it at all. In fact, if anything, it was the shakuhachi that affected the wind, not the other way around.
He had hoped that playing in the presence of the typhoon would incite the same feelings he’d felt when the monks had played, but that was not the case, so Kinjin decided to incite those same feelings within himself: wonderment, fear, excitement, acceptance. He forced these emotions through the shakuhachi, and it brought him to the proper place; the winds now played among the palm trunks in a different manner. Where it was constant and droning before, it was now fluid and childlike.
And then he heard it. The song of the other flute cut through the chaos of the palm trees and whipping fronds. But the song, Kinjin realized, wasn’t the same.
Kinjin stuffed the shakuhachi away and ran headlong over the wooded terrain toward the sound. The winds died down, and he broke through to a small clearing. Atop a swath of moss-infested rock, the monks walked in a circle, holding their begging bowls to the sky, waiting as the rain fell. The flutist stood in the center, playing his altered song.
Kinjin’s steps faltered, for the flutist was not the same man. He was taller than the monk he had seen before, thinner. His dark-skinned face was gaunt, and he had a mole over one eyebrow. He had carried one of the begging bowls in Kagoshima.
After a sidelong sneer, the flutist stopped and made his way to Kinjin. “You should not have come,” the monk said in broken Japanese, his voice forceful and stern.
Kinjin’s thoughts tripped over themselves. “Who are you?” he blurted in Mongolian.
“Dashiyen,” the monk said, a confused expression on his face.
“No.” Kinjin shook his head. “I mean, where is he, the one from Kagoshima?”
“He is Manhamha, and our lama is no concern of yours.”
“Yes he is. He gave me this,” Kinjin dug out the shakuhachi from his bag. “He gave me purpose.” Kinjin hadn’t realized how true those words were until he’d spoken them. “He saved my life.”
The monk stared, utterly serious, but then a sad smile spread over his face. “You gave yourself purpose. Now go. Get to safety.”
“You don’t understand.” Kinjin pulled the brass house key from under his black T-shirt and showed it to Dashiyen. “I… My parents. They died, and all I have left is this key.”
His face, like so many people when they heard Kinjin’s story, went appropriately sad. “I am sorry—”
“No, let me finish. They gave me this before they went to Japan. Twenty-eight years of marriage, and it was their first time away together. Just…just to spite them, I stayed home, and they died on their first day there—some helicopter tour of Sa
kurajima. I heard the news and—” Kinjin shook the chain, jingling the key beneath his tightened fist, “—the first thing I felt was relief. Relief! How fucked up is that? I had my life and this goddamned key while my parents were being flown home in fucking pine boxes.”
“I’m sure your parents meant much—”
Kinjin let the chain fall against his chest and scraped his fingers through his sopping hair. “Don’t you get it? I’d been searching for four years for a way to deal with this. When Manhamha gave me the shakuhachi, I found something to…” Kinjin couldn’t find the right words. “That could…”
“Lead you away from your guilt?”
Kinjin couldn’t find the words to respond around the lump forming in his throat.
Dashiyen replied with a knowing nod, but his eyes were still hard. “Believe me, I understand the search for meaning. Keep the shakuhachi, continue on your path. But do not think of playing it here again; you’ve already tainted the storm.” Dashiyen turned toward the circle.
It took several breaths for the monk’s words to sink in. Kinjin grabbed Dashiyen’s saffron-robed arm and turned him back around. “I tainted it?”
After pulling his arm away, the monk stood taller. “You twisted the storm for your own purposes. It has turned toward your dharma now, not his.”
“What is the rain for?”
“Manhamha is dying.”
A tingling rush traveled up Kinjin’s neck and filled his head. “Dying?”
The monk glanced at his rain-collecting brethren. “It is why we are here.”
“Then let me collect rain for you. Let me visit him. I’ll do whatever I can.”
The monk shook his head. “You cannot help, and your visit would do nothing for him.”
“I don’t believe that,” Kinjin said with all the bravado he could muster.
“I am sorry, but it is true. Now, please, I must complete the song.”
“Tell me one last thing,” Kinjin said, his vision wavering with tears. “The song. Is it yours or his?”
Dashiyen gripped his shakuhachi in both hands and squeezed it tenderly. “Both.” And with that he returned to the circle and resumed his playing.
Kinjin stared as they collected rainwater, as the song played. He let the sounds suffuse his being as he contemplated the monk’s answer. Both. The song had some of the same feel as Manhamha’s, but there were other stanzas as well. Kinjin let it all soak in, trying to understand before it was too late.
After Dashiyen completed his song, the monks formed a line and began walking away, but Dashiyen stopped as he neared Kinjin, thoughts and words warring within his expression. “You can find him in Ulaanbaatar,” he said crisply.
And then they left.
* *** *
Kinjin found shelter in a niche at the base of a cliff. He curled up into a tight ball and considered the monk’s words. You’ve already tainted the storm.
Dashiyen had not said so, but he understood it might be disastrous to Manhamha.
It has turned toward your dharma now, not his.
He knew then, knew he would find a way to heal Manhamha.
After the worst of Typhoon Goshen passed over, Kinjin returned to Kuala Lumpur and combed the weather stations and Internet for news of gathering storms. Two tropical storms were warring over the Pacific, and in another few days, Tropical Storm Hagishi achieved typhoon status.
With nearly the last of his dwindling reserves, he flew to Tandag on the Philippines as soon as it became clear it would strike the island. He rented a battered old US Army jeep from the pilot at the airport and rumbled his way north along the coastline to Tigao where a sharp ridge looked down upon the churning sea. After driving the jeep a few hundred yards away, Kinjin took his shakuhachi, a wineskin, and a carved wooden bowl to the edge of the cliff.
Hagishi’s winds were already picking up. The bland radio voice from Tandag repeated a message several times. Kinjin knew enough Filipino to tell that Hagishi had achieved Category 4 and might achieve 5. He stared at the storm heading toward him, the heart of it still miles away, and hefted the negligent weight of the shakuhachi in his hand, wondering now that the time had come if he would make it through the storm. He could only try, and if the typhoon saw fit to grant him the eye, he would gather the rain and find Manhamha.
The wind’s bluster increased, and the rain wrapped Kinjin like smoke from a bonfire enveloping a mosquito. Unsure how to begin, Kinjin played the song he’d first heard from Manhamha. He tried to alter it, to make it his own, but he could sense his own sour emotions.
Lead you away from your guilt? Dashiyen’s words couldn’t have been more on the mark. As Kinjin dug deeper, the full weight of the words struck him. He had tried to convince himself that he’d been searching for purpose since his parents had died, that his travels to China and Thailand and Mexico and Peru and a dozen others were all about his quest for a goal in life, when really they were about avoiding his guilt. He’d been deluding himself from the very beginning.
The urge to throw the shakuhachi off the cliff and run for the jeep seized him, and the song faltered. The wind laughed at his foolish attempts to control it, swarmed like dragonflies around a hapless gnat.
Shoved by the force of the wind, Kinjin fell and was dragged to the edge of the cliff. His wineskin slipped free of his shoulder and spiraled downward, soon lost in the gray wind and rain. The wooden bowl skittered away and wedged between two stout rocks as the rain pelted Kinjin’s face nearly to the point of blindness.
His parents’ key, feeling impossibly heavy, hung from his neck and waved before him. A surge of emotion rattled through Kinjin, and he yanked the chain free, heedless of the bite to the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he shouted into the wind. “I can’t carry you around with me anymore.” And with that Kinjin threw the key and chain with all the strength he could muster. The chain caught in the wind and jigged a crazy dance as the rain welcomed it with a howling embrace.
And then it was gone.
Kinjin dragged himself back from the cliff’s edge, made it to his knees, and brought the shakuhachi to his lips with shaking hands. He began the song again, no longer attempting to control the storm, merely playing what he felt was right. It contained echoes of Manhamha’s song, but this one was his too. As his hands steadied, the pace quickened and the tone sharpened. He found surer footing and stood. The gale, so angry with him before, calmed, accepted his presence. The roaring of the wind relaxed, and finally, blessedly, the wall of the eye passed over him.
The center of the storm was huge—nearly twice as large as Yomo’s. The rain was cool with the faint taste of salt. It was pure. Kinjin hung the flute from his belt and held the wooden bowl to the sky. He laughed and cried and collected as much as he could. With the wineskin lost, he cradled the brimming bowl back to the jeep, covered it with an old piece of leather, and wrapped it as tight as he could with some twine from the glove box.
After turning back to the storm, Kinjin waited for the opposite side of the eye wall to approach. He feared nothing as he took up his song, but he never felt like he had mastered the typhoon. They had simply come to a mutual understanding.
* *** *
Kinjin’s flights—and the last of his money—took him another forty hours before he reached Ulaanbaatar. Manhamha’s temple was the third he called upon. It sat in the northern section of the city along the brown Tuul River, surrounded by green ridges.
Dashiyen approached Kinjin at the gate to the Temple. He noticed the wineskin Kinjin carried, and an embarrassed smile touched his lips. “I didn’t believe him when he said you would come,” he said. He stepped to one side and motioned Kinjin forward. “Please, he’s been waiting for you.”
Kinjin bowed, unable to find words for such a greeting.
Dashiyen led him into the cool interior of a two-story temple to a room with sliding wooden doors. Rush mats lay on the floor, and a wide bed lay in the center of the room. Manhamha, covered by a saffron blanket wi
th a maroon tree stitched into it, was propped up on a small pile of embroidered pillows. He stared through listless eyes as Kinjin approached.
Kinjin waited for a long time, so long that he feared he was too late.
Manhamha’s eyes finally gained coherence and fixed upon him.
Kinjin held his wine skin and showed it to Manhamha. “I’ve brought you rain.”
Manhamha frowned as he stared at the skin.
“From another typhoon. I knew you needed more.”
Manhamha forced a smile onto his round face. “We can all use help,” he said, his voice a thin thread, “but I wonder if you know what help you’ve brought.”
“Typhoon rain. Healing rain.”
Manhamha smiled again. It was genuine but very, very sad. “Those drops do not heal.”
Heart beating faster, Kinjin stared at the old man, then at his wineskin. “Yes, they do. Dashiyen told me.”
“No, they do not. They are used to ease the path to the next life.”
Hot blood rushed to his face. Ease the path?
“Do not be troubled. There are others here to guide you.”
Kinjin stared around the room, struggling to bring some sense of meaning. “But I just found you.”
“That may be.” Manhamha’s eyes went distant, then refocused. “But we will find each other again. I am sure of it.”
Kinjin hefted the wineskin. The weight of it, so slight, felt repulsive. How could he give it to Manhamha? But as he stared at the smiling, round face of the man before him, he realized how selfish he was being. He didn’t understand, wasn’t sure that he ever would, but Manhamha did—how could he not give him the rain?
He forced a smile and stepped to the side of the bed, feeling like he was about to cut the rope that held him to a savior ship in the middle of a raging ocean. He unscrewed the cap and handed the wineskin to Manhamha.
“Go well,” Kinjin said.
“Learn well,” Manhamha replied. And then he took the wineskin and drank the handfuls of liquid. The wheezing in his lungs vanished, and the pained look in his eyes relaxed.
