Zen Attitude

by Sujata Massey

  I moved across the stone path toward the long, open sink where people used little bamboo ladles to wash their hands in ritual cleansing before approaching the main hall. I would clean myself as best I could. I got a few disapproving glares as I spilled water over my hands and arms. They were worried I was dirtying a holy area, I realized too late.

  “May I borrow your telephone, please?” I said in a low voice to a tour guide who was carrying a pocket phone clipped to her belt.

  She stared at me, then sprang away; so different from Mohsen, who had helped me in the park when he had everything to lose. I spotted a different tour group leader hustling her group toward the temple parking lot. About thirty retirees wearing yellow stickers on their shirts were moving slowly behind the yellow flag the tour guide was carrying. I slipped into their midst, and although a few people gave me a slightly wide berth, no one cast me out. Nobody wanted to lose their place in line for the tour bus waiting in the temple parking lot.

  “The next stop will be the Great Buddha at Hase Temple,” the guide said in a singsong chant. “Over ninety-three tons in weight, it was cast in the middle of the twelfth century according to the wishes of the shogun.”

  As we approached the temple’s tall gate, I could see a pair of monks intently watching the exit: Jiro, the one who had shown us the scroll, and the younger monk who had brought me to him. They were real-life nio, far more sinister than the painted musclemen who glowered on either side of the gate.

  The tour group was so large that it threatened to overrun the monks, who grudgingly moved apart at the tour guide’s request. I was pushed through by the bodies around me. Only when I was out the gate and at the bus did I dare look behind.

  The guards were facing the temple again, still waiting for me.

  “Are you on this bus? Sunshine Tour?” The guide, standing next to the bus, looked pointedly at my dress marked with blood, but no yellow sticker.

  “You mean this isn’t a Kamakura City bus? Oh, I see the other bus stop now. Sorry.” I broke out of the line and tried to look like I was walking, not fleeing, to the street. I would catch the first bus I saw and get into the heart of the city and safety. I realized as I stuck my bloody hand in my pocket, that I had no change. I’d left all my money in the glove compartment in Mr. Ishida’s van, to pay for the road tolls on the way home.

  I want this to end, I sobbed to myself. In Kamakura there was no one who would help me except Yoko Maeda—that is, if she hadn’t closed up shop and gone to pick up her granddaughter, who should have been finished with school an hour ago.

  Maeda Antiques was the last right turn before the train station. I hastened my pace, but a bicyclist on the sidewalk began clanging his bell behind me.

  “Abunai!” the biker called, telling me to watch out.

  I skipped out of his way and into the street. A car’s breaks squealed. I shot a glance over my shoulder and saw the black Mega Cruiser. The sun’s glare obscured the faces of the two people in the car.

  I bounded back on the sidewalk, pushing through a swarm of tourists camped out at a row of soft-drink machines. There was a pay phone next to the machines, as well as one of Horin-ji’s monks standing with his begging bowl. Under that big hat, was he watching for me? Was he one of Wajin’s spies?

  I ran back into the street. The truck was still tailing me, and whoever was behind the wheel was honking aggressively.

  “Pedestrians must walk on the sidewalk. Abunai,” an old man called helpfully to me.

  I ran faster, looking down when my bare feet slipped in something wet and warm. Mud, I could only hope. I looked up again, belatedly noticing the red traffic light. My body was still in motion, and I ran straight into the bumper of a police car entering the intersection from my right.

  Pain smashed through my knee, but there was hardly time enough to notice as I flew off the bumper and into the sky. As I soared through the warm summer air, I heard Mr. Ishida’s voice calling my name. If I could fly to him and the afterlife, I would feel no more pain. But I came back to earth, slamming into something soft and giving: a human body with arms that grabbed me tightly as we rolled across the road.

  Chapter 27

  “I guess you have an excuse not to run anymore,” Akemi Mihori said.

  I stared at the sleeve of her judo-gi, white cotton stamped with dirt and blood. My blood. She was the person who had grabbed me and broken my fall with her body. We lay together in the middle of the traffic. All the cars had turned off their engines; except for her voice, the atmosphere was still as a temple.

  “She will not lose the use of her leg, surely? And Miss Mihori, are you also hurt?” Mr. Ishida hovered over me, an elderly angel still dressed in his vintage Zen robe.

  “I’m fine,” Akemi panted. “But Rei’s knee is going to be a serious setback if she wants to continue running.”

  “Ishida-san, how is it that you’re alive? Wajin said he killed you,” I whispered as cars began to move again, cautiously, around us.

  “Of course I am living! I am not fast, but I am flexible. I was able to remove most of my bindings while in the car. When Wajin took you inside the cave, I was able to take off my blindfold—another tai chi move,” he said offhandedly. “It took me a very long time to get down the mountain, but I was lucky to recognize Miss Mihori standing outside her judo gymnasium. I told her what happened.”

  So Wajin had lied about killing Mr. Ishida. He knew that I would believe it and probably hoped that would spur me into confessing where I’d left the scroll.

  “We took the police up to the caves half an hour ago, and when there was no sign of you, everyone panicked,” Akemi said. “I was ready to kill Kazuhito when we couldn’t find you.”

  “In the end, you saved my life,” I said. “But Jun Kuroi is lost in the tunnels, and Kazuhito is at your house!”

  “Not anymore. My assistant radioed that both are in custody,” Lieutenant Hata said.

  “How did you know I was in Kamakura?” Although I wished Lieutenant Hata had made it up to the mountain earlier, I was grateful for his presence.

  “You may recall that I mentioned there were certain signs present at the death scenes of Nao Sakai and Nomu Ideta. What those police officers found was dirt with an extremely high alkaline content. I noticed the same dirt in your apartment as well. When you mentioned Horin-ji to me, I started thinking about their famous hydrangeas.”

  “Hydrangeas need super-alkaline soil,” Akemi said. “I found this guy’s assistant poking around on my private trail taking soil samples. I was about to give him hell, but then he said he was working in cooperation with the Kamakura police to find you.”

  “How did anyone know that?” I asked Lieutenant Hata.

  “You abandoned luggage in a coin locker at the Tokyo National Museum. When your pocket phone inside began ringing, a security guard opened the locker and contacted us. We called the Glendinning apartment, and Angus-san told us about the scroll.”

  I’d thought Angus hated police. It wasn’t so bad to have a little brother, especially if he was going to look after me. Little brother-in-law? Not quite, I thought as the ambulance arrived, screeching like a song by Nine Inch Nails.

  My knee was down but not completely out. During my week in the orthopedics ward at St. Luke’s International Hospital, the doctor in charge of my case had suggested arthroscopic surgery. The question was whether the operation should be done by a St. Luke’s surgeon or by a specialist Hugh wanted to fly in from London. I surprised everyone by making my own decision.

  “I’m having it done in California at my father’s hospital. You can’t beat American medicine.”

  “But you said you never wanted to leave Japan! And how in hell are you going to manage a plane seat? You can’t bend your knee.” Hugh, who was spending his lunch hour with me, stroked the thigh just above my cast. He still had his touch, and I still had my reactions to it.

  “You may remember that my parents gave me a first-class ticket to San Francisco that I’ve never u
sed. I understand there’s plenty of leg room. That’s what you always tell me about your first-class travels.”

  “When would you go?”

  “Sometime next week. I’ll probably stay for a month so they can make sure it’s healing correctly.”

  Hugh was silent for a while before asking, “Are you going to California because of the baby?”

  It took me a few seconds to understand what baby he was talking about: the mythical creature he had conceived when I’d been motion-sick on our train ride out of Kamakura. I smiled reassuringly. “You don’t have to worry. My period’s starting tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? How do you know?” Hugh sounded irritated.

  “Cramps.”

  He sighed. “I suppose I should feel relieved. But in a way I’m sorry to have lost this final connection with you.”

  “What do you mean, final connection? You’re the one who wants to leave Japan.”

  “You’re misquoting me. What I hate is being a foreigner. I thought about it some more, and I realize I will be just as foreign in most of Europe.”

  “So you want to go to Scotland?”

  “Yes. I need to get back to my roots. I treated Angus with kid gloves because I hadn’t seen him in years. I thought that if I came down hard, he’d run off and I wouldn’t see him again. To be honest, I’m the one who’s blown off the family. I’ve been abroad so long that I’ve never seen my nieces and nephews, and now I know I really want children. For the time being, I can practice being an uncle.”

  “You’ll meet someone over there. You’ll get married and have exactly what you want,” I said, my spirits sinking.

  “But I want to marry only you,” he said.

  I’d never expected a proposal at a time when I was lying in a hospital suffering from a damaged knee and premenstrual cramping. Those irritations should have faded as I looked into Hugh’s eyes. They didn’t.

  “I can’t get married,” I said.

  “You mean you won’t?”

  I spoke slowly, trying to organize my complicated set of emotions. “I love you—I’ve known that for a few months now—but I’m not ready to be your wife. I need to make a decent year’s salary, my own salary, before I can think about a merger.”

  Hugh caught my hand. “I could wait a year. Or even two.”

  “You would?”

  “I keep forgetting how young you are. You’ve got a lot to think about.” He traced the stitches on my left hand. “I’m still going to Scotland, but I’ll order one of those freephone numbers so you can call without charge.”

  “An 800 number?”

  “That’s right. You can ring me daily on the status of your feelings.”

  I laughed so much that I forgot all about my knee, forgot everything except the feeling of his arms around me and the knowledge that although my life wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t so terrible, either.

  A few days before I was scheduled to fly back to California, Nana Mihori came to St. Luke’s for a visit, wearing not her typical kimono but a mustard-colored silk tunic and slim trousers. When I told her that I liked the pantsuit, she promptly denigrated it, as Japanese etiquette required.

  “The only advantage to slacks, I believe, is the comfort and convenience. These days, I travel so much by train. Back and forth from the National Police Agency and the Tokyo National Museum, lunching with my tea colleagues in between. It is a whirlwind schedule.”

  “Please sit down,” I urged her, wondering about her agenda.

  “Rei-san, I am very grateful to you.”

  I felt my face getting hot. “I didn’t do what you wanted. If I had, maybe none of this would have happened.”

  “Everything—the actions of my former adopted son and his brother—happened because Akemi and I decided to save the Mitsuhiro scroll for ourselves. I knew in my heart that taking the scroll from the archives was wrong, but I was so worried about how we would live after Kazuhito took over. I did not want to be like my sister, lingering in a home where she was not wanted.”

  “We all want to be independent,” I said. “I’ve been wondering about something. How did you know the Mitsuhiro scroll was hidden in the tansu?”

  “It’s a long story. I first stored the scroll in the general antiques collection at home, but unfortunately Nomu noticed it and hid it for himself. When Haru took Nomu to the hospital for one of his health emergencies, Akemi and I searched the house. We found the scroll among my brother’s business papers. I decided to move it to the tansu, which had a false bottom that I remembered from childhood games. We thought it would be wise not to tell Haru about the scroll’s new hiding place. She gave us such a bad surprise this summer by consigning the tansu to Hita Fine Arts! Now we had to retrieve the scroll along with the tansu. I asked you to do the job for me so my brother and sister would not suspect my strange behavior.”

  “How did Kazuhito and Tun find out?”

  “I believe Kazuhito must have overheard a conversation about the tansu that Akemi and I had in the temple cemetery. We thought we were safe talking there, but apparently were not.”

  “Your temple grounds are safe again,” I said.

  “Yes.” She looked sad, though. “Soon Nomu’s ashes will be buried in our cemetery. We have also encouraged Mrs. Sakai to bring her late husband’s ashes to Horin-ji. I am not sure if she will want that, but I felt the need to offer something, given how innocently he fell into our terrible family drama.”

  “She might accept,” I said. Because of Japan’s limited land, the costs of a temple burial were stratospheric; to get free internment at a temple such as Horin-ji would be a blessing. And it wasn’t Nana Mihori who had done Mr. Sakai wrong—it was Kazuhito, who was in the process of being removed from the Mihori family register. It would be as if the man currently locked up in a prison for hardened criminals had never existed.

  “I have to think what I should do for you.” Nana’s eyes rested on me. “I understand that you have offered to return the Mitsuhiro scroll to Horin-ji. That was extremely generous.”

  After some serious discussion with Lieutenant Hata, it had become evident that I had no legal claim on the scroll, since it had been placed in the tansu by accident. Mislaid was the word Hata used instead of stolen, explaining that it was impossible to define Akemi’s action as theft since she was for all intents and purposes one of the scroll’s caretakers. I could have pressed the issue in court, but I had no interest in that. Some things were more important than money.

  “The best thing, I think, would be to fulfill my promise to you and buy the Sado Island tansu,” Nana said, returning my thoughts to the present.

  “That doesn’t make sense, now that you have the scroll again. You got what you wanted.”

  “Actually, I plan to donate the tansu to Yoko Maeda, who runs the antiques shop where you recently worked. She may have mentioned that I once gave her some . . . trouble. I would like to present her with the tansu to correct my past selfishness. I understand you won’t work there again, and she is going to miss your help.”

  “You’re very influential.” I looked closely at Nana. “Do you think the Kamakura Green and Pristine Society could improve the parking situation near her shop?”

  Of course. I’ve already sent the city council a letter about it.” She paused. “I must repeat how grateful I am to you for saving my family. I know that Akemi has not come to see you because she is embarrassed. She thinks you will reject her because you know the truth about how she took the scroll.”

  “She’s being ridiculous. Tell her that after my knee is fixed, I want to start training.”

  “More running?”

  “Definitely, and maybe even judo. The way my life’s been going, it’s time I learned to protect myself.”

  Nana Mihori smiled and bid me farewell, leaving behind a tin box filled with her delicious barley tea and, when I looked underneath it, a long white envelope. So she really intended to buy the tansu. I slid out a thick wad of money and started counting. She had left five mi
llion yen and a note.

  Please accept reimbursement for the cost of the tansu, as well as your travel expenses and finder’s fee. The Glendinning brothers assured me they will personally deliver the tansu tomorrow morning, so please do not worry about hiring a ground transportation service. I shall recommend you with warmest praise to my friends, and I look forward to hiring you once again. Please give my best regards to your aunt.

  Yours truly,

  Nana Mihori

  “What’s with all that payola? Are you running some black-market scam?” Angus Glendinning sauntered in with his arms full of bags from the Old Tehran coffee shop. Falafel, I thought, sniffing happily.

  “It’s a genuine payment,” I told Angus. “I earned every bit with my blood, sweat, and tears.”

  “Figures you’d mention an old band,” he scoffed, tossing a cassette in my lap. “I made this for you. It’s cutting-edge British, which actually means it has a bit of that eighties sound you like.”

  “What band is this? I can’t read your writing,” I said, squinting at the scrawled label.

  “They’re called Massive Attack. You’ll love them,” Angus promised, taking the tape out of my hands and slipping it into the boom box he’d brought me on his last visit.

  By the time the first song was over, Angus had danced nonstop through the room, and I had laughed so hard I’d spilled my falafel sandwich over the blankets.

  “Gaijin,” the charge nurse sighed to her colleague when they came into the room and saw the mess.

  We just grinned.

  Excerpt From The Typhoon Lover

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  by

  Sujata Massey

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  Chapter 1

  I’ve never thought of myself as the blindfold type.

  Not on planes, not in beds, and certainly not in restaurants. Especially not a place like DC Coast, where I was sitting on the evening of my thirtieth birthday, listening to my dinner companion trying his best to be persuasive.