Tomo

by Holly Thompson

  “Thanks. It isn’t easy, though. Always being compared to somebody so distinguished.”

  With an easygoing smile, the priest invited Olegs to join him for a cup of tea.

  Sitting on cushions on the open veranda of the main hall, they introduced themselves. The priest gave his name as Kyuan. He seemed accustomed to dealing with foreigners and didn’t make a fuss over either Olegs’s unexpectedly good Japanese or his interest in visiting temples and shrines.

  Olegs made up his mind to ask about the stone monument. “Is that Kiyohime’s grave?”

  “It’s a memorial. But you’re welcome to think of it as if it were her real grave.”

  “What’s the connection between your temple and Kiyohime?”

  “There are stories that have been passed down, but no credible historical evidence. Isn’t it enough, though, that there is a connection? After all, the people of Edo love the Kiyohime story. They couldn’t get enough of the classic Noh version, so they adapted it to Kabuki, and now look how many variations have been produced. This year’s Kabuki calendar even began with a performance in which the great Ichikawa Danjuro himself was the one to stamp out Kiyohime’s rage. Being a fan of the aragoto style, I was excited to see the alternate ending with the demon driven back to the stage along the hanamichi walkway.”

  “‘Demon . . . ?’ You make it sound like Kiyohime’s the villain.”

  “That’s just how the people of Edo show their love. Like the way fan fiction reworks famous stories.”

  Kyuan refilled their cups and plucked a dry sweet from a dish. A scattering of petals fluttered onto the veranda. “The way to console the spirits of the dead is by keeping them alive in memory—by thinking about them from time to time—not by erecting splendid gravestones inscribed with generous eulogies. Year after year the people of Edo flock to see new variations on the Kiyohime story performed and experience her passion and pain as if it were their own. She knows that even being cast as a demon to be subdued is, in its own way, a form of love.”

  “Well, maybe Kiyohime’s fine with that, but it has to be rough on Anton. He ends up looking like a total creep.”

  Kyuan laughed. “Well, you’re a handsome young man. And I see you know how it feels to be pursued by a woman.” Olegs felt taken aback, as if the priest had seen right through him and uncovered his hidden conceit.

  “But . . . Well, I was just wondering how my uncle’s experiment would go.” Olegs’s attempt to change the subject was forced but Kyuan let it go. “If they succeed, Anton will be saved. And Kiyohime will no longer be a monster that cursed a man with a hideous end, will she? Even the Tsar of Bells at the Kremlin won’t have to be broken.”

  “You do not, I see, despise Russia as your uncle does.”

  “No, not as much as my uncle. I mean, I feel—how should I put it—more lukewarm than most Latvians. I’m definitely not part of the pro-Russian crowd. Russia’s a difficult neighbor, but I feel no hatred.”

  “Someday the Russians will find in you a very formidable opponent.”

  “Why? I just told you I don’t hate Russia.”

  “Exactly.” Kyuan paused for a moment and looked at Olegs as if to make sure his meaning had gotten through. “Hate is the same as love. You must have heard the saying, ‘The greatest hate springs from the greatest love.’ Well, hate also morphs into love before you know it. The powerful emotions, the obsession with the other—it’s just like being in love. Your heart is under the control of the other. The more you hate them the more you are captive to them. Those who hate Russia, and revel in their loathing, have lost their hearts to Russia as surely as someone consumed by love. But you’re different. Could the Russians ask for a more formidable adversary? After all, yours is a heart they cannot steal.”

  Like a flash of light Olegs grasped what Kyuan meant. The priest stood up and held out his left hand. A single cherry petal settled into his palm as if beckoned there.

  “But be careful during your stay in Tokyo. This is a city that worships many deities and monsters, in a location said to be ideal for containing their power—or for drawing on their strength. They say Tokyo sits on a ‘dragon vein’—a path traveled by dragons. You know Shinobazu Pond, that artificial lake in Ueno Park? It was built as a watering hole for dragons. That area is a ‘power spot,’ the sort of place where you can easily become disoriented and fall prey to unseen forces. Be careful, particularly tonight.” The cherry petal, rather than falling from Kyuan’s hand, seemed to have vanished within it.

  Before Olegs had a chance to ask what Kyuan meant, the priest resumed speaking.

  “Tonight at the Kremlin there will be a memorial service for the Tsar of Bells. Or so we describe it here in Japan. It’s actually a Russian Orthodox ceremony, a panikhida, paying tribute to Anton’s memory.”

  “I’ve never heard of that before.”

  “Today is the anniversary of Anton’s death. The ceremony will be broadcast live and streamed on the web. It starts just after five o’clock here. People will probably be watching on their cell phones during their blossom parties, and there are public viewing sites all around the city. But I really have to be going. I must be in Ueno tonight, too. You should be getting home. When you get out to the street, take a left and you’ll come to a busy road that’s well marked. From there you’ll be able to find your way.”

  Figuring that Kyuan must have his reasons, Olegs didn’t give much thought to being rushed from the temple. Then, just as Kyuan had said, he immediately found his bearings. Still, how had Kyuan known he was lost? Olegs only realized how peculiar that was as he ate a late lunch of fried-rice omelet at a greasy spoon in Yanaka’s Yomise shopping arcade.

  No, he had sensed that things were strange even before lunch. There had been puzzling signs, both seen and unseen. In fact, there was something odd about the entire Yanaka area.

  The Yanaka Ginza shopping street, which he had expected to find swarming with weekend tourists, was surprisingly quiet. Indeed, by midday a number of stores were already closed. Along the side streets, colorful long-sleeved furisode kimono had been hung out to air. As a man loaded beer crates into a car, a middle-aged woman in furisode walked by with a cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand and a cell phone pressed to her ear. People seemed to be closing up shop early to enjoy the cherry blossoms.

  As Olegs watched he had a sudden revelation. If a dragon vein ran through Tokyo, could there be a “serpent vein,” too? What if the wrath of Kiyohime, taking the form of a serpent, followed such a route from Moscow back to Japan and cursed Peteris’s experiment?

  Finding himself near Nippori Station, Olegs boarded the Yamanote Line. The train was crowded with men carrying bulky parcels and women dressed up in furisode. Ueno Station was packed, even more congested than during the morning rush hour. His guidebook said more than three hundred thousand people visited Ueno Park daily during cherry-blossom season. Three hundred thousand people! That was almost one-seventh the population of Latvia! How in the world was he ever going to find Kyuan?

  Afternoon yielded slowly to evening. Great LCD screens had been set up before the museum and at the baseball field. Olegs navigated the sea of people carefully to avoid getting tangled in the trailing sleeves of the women’s kimono. Overhead, the cherry blossoms were more splendid than before, having grown an even deeper shade of pink since the previous day.

  Swept along by the crowd, Olegs headed toward the fountain. In the plaza a panoramic view opened up around the distinctive façade of the Tokyo National Museum. The illuminated fountain sparkled, and large-screen displays glimmered brightly all around. No sooner had the test image faded than a cheer rose from the crowd. The memorial service for the Tsar of Bells, broadcast live from Russia, had begun.

  Dressed in ceremonial vestments glittering with brocade and jewels, the priests had just arrived at the square before the Tsar of Bells. Government officials and military leaders stood in orderly rows. The President and Prime Minister observed the proceedings with their wives from the s
tand of honor as the censers were swung.

  Uncertain what would come next, everyone watched closely as the ceremony got under way. Many were also tapping at their cell phones and laptops.

  Olegs looked around carefully. Would Kyuan be wearing his black robes or street clothes? What if instead of jeans and a sweatshirt he wore hip-hop fashion with a cap pulled over his shaved head?

  “Olegs! Over here!”

  Olegs stopped dead in his tracks, stunned to hear someone calling his name. But it was just the landlord’s family and the folks from the neighborhood association. They had managed to secure a choice spot near the fountain.

  No sooner had Olegs sat down with them on their blue plastic tarp than he was handed a plate of sushi rolls and grilled chicken skewers. The landlady and her elderly mother-in-law both wore furisode that smelled of old-fashioned camphor mothballs. Olegs was sure he had been taught that only unmarried girls wore furisode, and then only on special occasions. Was this really how people enjoyed the cherry blossoms?

  Suddenly the crowd let out a roar. Something was happening at the Kremlin. Peering up at the display Olegs saw that a beautiful young woman with black hair, wearing furisode with a cherry-blossom design, was now addressing the priests and the President. In Ueno Park, the women in furisode all stood up from their picnics and moved toward the plaza together with those who had been walking through the park. A number of people pulled out shamisen.

  From somewhere came the sound of singing in the nagauta style of the Kabuki theater, and at the Kremlin the woman in furisode began to dance before the bell.

  Apart from the flowers there are only pines

  Fleeting blossoms give way to endless yearning

  And darkness brings the ringing of the temple bell

  Unraveling the meaning of nagauta, with its archaic language and peculiar vocalizations, can be a challenge. Olegs, however, found everything coming together so clearly that he took no notice of his own uncanny ability to make sense of the lyrics and the situation.

  The woman at the Kremlin—a shirabyoshi dancer—turned to face the bell. The intensity of her gaze made Olegs shudder. She wore a tall, gold-colored court cap, and as she began to dance the women in Ueno fell into step.

  There is much to resent in the tolling of the bell

  Struck as night falls, it evokes the impermanence of all things

  The nagauta continued, comparing the ringing of bells at certain hours with Buddhist teachings. The paper lanterns hung among the cherry blossoms were now lit, enveloping the dancing women and their colorful furisode in a dreamy pink glow. Olegs had been watching, entranced, when he was abruptly brought back to his senses by a glimpse of black clothing.

  Saying that he needed to find a friend, Olegs excused himself from the landlord’s party. The dancing now under way made the search for Kyuan even more of a challenge than before. The tone of the nagauta changed, shifting to a lively cataloging of famous pleasure quarters throughout Japan. Jostled by the crowd, Olegs glanced up at the monitors. At the Kremlin the shirabyoshi dancer had removed her hat, and her pale blue furisode seemed different. Her kimono sash, its ends dangling loosely, was decorated with circular designs. He was certain her furisode had been red before.

  Beyond the dancing women Olegs saw a man in black robes. It had to be Kyuan. Then he noticed other men wearing black throughout the plaza. Restless and seemingly unable to contain themselves, they, too, began to dance. But one priest did not join the others. That was Kyuan.

  Iris and blue flag are sisters

  And so similar the color of their flowers

  Who can say which is the older and which the younger?

  From east and west all come to see the flower-like face

  And gazing upon it fall more deeply in love

  With the winsome maiden

  Fireworks were being launched into the sky. As he struggled to make his way through the crowd, Olegs heard people saying Twitter and Facebook were down. Catching sight of Olegs as he approached, Kyuan smiled as if to say he’d been waiting for him.

  Neglecting preliminaries, Olegs abruptly demanded, “You said there’s a dragon vein in Tokyo. Is there a serpent vein, too?”

  “A serpent vein? Hmm. Well, if you think so, there may be. And if you don’t, then I suppose not.”

  “Stop fooling around and tell me! I’m serious. If the accelerator shoots an elementary particle across time, couldn’t that rouse a serpent in Tokyo?

  “Calm down. Don’t give in to your emotions. Outsiders like you are especially vulnerable to being possessed.” Kyuan turned to face Olegs directly, paused for a moment, then spoke quietly and firmly. “Regardless of what happens from here on out, you must accept that what happens will happen, and what doesn’t won’t. If you can’t, you’ll never make it back.”

  More and more people joined in with the music. Performers in Ueno played everything from electric guitars to baroque flutes and beat boxes. At the Kremlin a balalaika ensemble played the shamisen parts as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The music grew calmer and the shirabyoshi, a long strip of cloth in hand, began a graceful dance. Her costume, once again transformed, was now a lavender furisode decorated with boughs of weeping cherry.

  I first learned of love and then experienced it

  For whom did I redden my lips and blacken my teeth?

  It was all to show my devotion to you

  The sun went down. The sleeves of the shirabyoshi’s furisode now depicted ceremonial drums decorated with flames against a saffron ground. A small drum hung around her neck. She tapped it daintily with little drumsticks as the nagauta conveyed the passion of a woman tormented by love. In Ueno, lasers concealed on the roofs of the museum and temple buildings billowed across the sky like the northern lights.

  As the shirabyoshi knelt and leaned backward, Olegs was struck by a sudden realization: she was no ordinary dancing girl; she was the spirit of Kiyohime. He turned toward Kyuan for confirmation, but the priest simply kneeled and took up his prayer beads.

  What had happened with the time cannon? It was just turning six o’clock. If all had gone as scheduled, it was being fired at that very moment.

  The air began to resonate with the sound of bells from all directions. The Bell of Time in Ueno Park, normally rung softly, had been struck so hard it could be heard clearly over the clamor of the crowd. But a sixth sense told Olegs that this was not the only bell ringing. At Ueno’s Kan’ei-ji, Senso-ji, and Zojo-ji temples, at the Kremlin’s Bell Tower of Ivan the Great, at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, at Gohyakurakan-ji, the Danilovsky Monastery, Ikegami Honmon-ji, Tsukiji Hongan-ji, Shibamata Taishakuten, Novodevichy Convent, Kazan Cathedral, Donskoy Monastery, and the Church of Simeon Stopnik—indeed, everywhere there were bells to be found in Tokyo or Moscow, every last one of them was ringing.

  The strumming of the shamisen and balalaika intensified. Constellations were now visible in the night sky, and cherry petals danced in the lantern light like myriad twinkling stars. Countless glistening strands began rising from the ground, silver filaments that Olegs soon saw were tiny translucent snakes.

  In a deep, operatic voice that rose from the depths of his belly, Kyuan slowly began chanting a sutra.

  The tiny snakes, spurred by the swaying of the women’s furisode, stirred fallen cherry petals as they rose into the heavens and formed a band of light like the Milky Way. The shirabyoshi, holding tambourines in each hand and wearing a white furisode, began dancing more vigorously.

  Kyuan continued chanting.

  Olegs felt sure Kyuan would not respond, but he could no longer contain himself. “You can’t . . . ,” he said. “You’re not trying to stamp out Kiyohime, are you?”

  “Of course not,” said Kyuan, unexpectedly interrupting his chanting. “There’s not a thing in the world that deserves to be stamped out. All is one under Buddha.”

  Olegs no longer knew where he was, or even who he was.

  Something enormous rose into the sky ov
er Tokyo as if drawn from the earth. The Milky Way of little snakes morphed into one giant serpent, emitting silvery plasma as it ascended into the heavens.

  The shirabyoshi looked toward the Tsar of Bells with an unearthly air as the nagauta approached its climax. Clouds gathered in the Moscow sky, and the square grew suddenly dark. The giant serpent that had risen over Tokyo crossed Siberia in an instant, tracing an arc of fire as it plunged toward the Kremlin.

  The flowerlike figure, her hair in disarray

  Recalling again that accursed bell

  Takes it by its dragonhead and, seeming to fly

  Carries it away and disappears

  The serpent set upon the Tsar of Bells, coiling around it in a burst of silver flame, drawing it in, wrapping around it again and again. Beloved, despised, unforgettable bell! Wellspring of inexhaustible emotion! Helicopters from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations arrived one after the other and vainly doused the serpent with chemical fire suppressant before being driven away by the violent updraft.

  The serpent clasped the bell in a prolonged embrace. Finally relaxing its grip, the serpent drew away and took again to the sky. Olegs could feel something pulling away from his own body. He looked up and saw the serpent, fluttering in the wind like a celestial robe of feathers, descend slowly into the Moscow River. The spent body of the serpent struck the surface of the river with a great crack, raining spray over the Kremlin and even onto Red Square and the roof of the Bolshoi Theater.

  Olegs regained consciousness in Ueno with a woman’s sigh echoing in his ears, followed by a man’s slightly nasal murmuring in Russian, “Ну, ладно . . . Это меня освободило . . . (It’s all right. I am released.).”

  Peteris returned home the next morning looking utterly exhausted. Despite his confidence, the experiment had failed, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. Peteris said he now had to stand by for time on the university supercomputer and would be unable to take Olegs to the airport the next day. That was fine with Olegs, but he hated to see his normally genial uncle so irate and unapproachable.