Zen Attitude (21 page)

It was the runner who’d intruded on Akemi’s trail the night before. A flash of recognition lit his face, and he bowed.

“We meet once more,” he said when he came up.

“Yes. I’ve just been worshiping.”

“Really? You’re foreign, aren’t you?”

“Half Japanese. I live here,” I said a bit defensively.

“In the teahouse?”

I wanted to say in Tokyo, but perhaps he’d peered through the teahouse’s torn screens and seen the signs of my residence.

“I’m staying in the forest for a few days of meditation. I have permission,” I added.

“The Mihoris are very generous, it’s true. But what a funny place to stay.” He put down his shovel and came closer to me.

“I have a strong desire to learn about Buddhism,” I said, backing away.

“How do you like it?” He didn’t move, but his eyes followed me, seeming to go into my soul.

The appreciative words I meant to offer couldn’t come. Instead, I found myself saying, “I think Zen practice is very regimented. It hurt.”

“After a while, pain becomes your friend,” he said softly. “But you already know about pain.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You practice judo with the Mihori daughter, don’t you?” He gestured with his hands toward the loose pants I was wearing, which I realized now were part of a martial arts uniform. “Your injury—” The monk stretched out a finger to lightly touch my bruised cheek.

I was paralyzed, first from shock that a Japanese stranger had touched me—not even my relatives felt comfortable embracing me—and also from the undeniable sensuality of the touch. Even after his hand was gone, I felt a strange warmth where it had been. Like Abbot Mihori’s blow to my shoulder, the pressure felt transforming, as if he’d glided across the bruise and taken it away. There was something unearthly about this man and his touch; I wondered if he had training in acupuncture or another healing art.

“I’m not a martial artist. I just had an accident,” I said, finding my voice at last.

He picked up the shovel again. “This temple has always been a refuge. In
shōgun
times, women could not be legally divorced, no matter how abusive their husbands. Still, if they ran away and were admitted here, their husbands could not retrieve them. Women called Horin-ji the divorce temple.”

“But it’s not a nunnery anymore. The priests and monks are all men! And women have no chance of joining the ranks ever.”

“In Zen, some traditions cannot change. But women certainly are welcome to visit our
zazen
practice every morning or evening, for that matter.”

“Since you know so much about the temple’s history, may I ask you something about the Mihoris?” I asked.

“The good friends who gave you permission to stay here?” He sounded amused.

“What is Mrs. Mihori’s family background? I understand she’s not from Kamakura.”

“Tokyo, I think. But I have no gossip. We are primarily silent in the monastery and temple. A chance meeting with a visitor such as yourself is very unusual.”

“Well, I must go. It was very instructive to speak with a monk.”

“It was not much of a formal meeting. I do not know your name.”

“Shimura Rei.” I said my name in the proper backwards fashion. “And you?”

“My name is Wajin. I look after the place.”

A groundskeeper. I felt a rush of sympathy and said, “Akemi’s going to be away today. You could jog on the track again without her noticing.”

Wajin laughed lightly. “You mean you won’t tell stories about me again?”

“I only said something because I was worried you saw me in a nontourist zone. I didn’t know what you’d do—”

“But you have
permission
,” he said sarcastically. “Why would my comments matter?”

He’d made his point, so I left for the women’s rest room in a highly embarrassed fluster. I rinsed my hands and face because I sensed Wajin’s touch had left a smudge of dirt below my eye. When I looked in the cloudy mirror above the sink, I did a double take. My bruise was gone.

Back in the teahouse, I ran a finger over the perfectly normal patch of skin under my eye. I’d always thought faith healing was a crock, but now I wasn’t sure. Buddhism was full of miracles—trees that wept pearl-like tears, dead men returned to life. If Wajin had such a gift for healing, he was being wasted on the garden.

In the excitement over my transformed face, I’d forgotten to go to the Mihori house to pick up my pocket telephone. I’d have to return in the afternoon, when Miss Tanaka was doing errands in a different part of town. For now, I’d walk into Kamakura and use a pay phone.

After changing into the sundress I’d worn while making my balcony escape, I walked south on Kamakura-kaido, a long, narrow road lined with smaller Zen temples and a few restaurants and shops. As I strolled beside women taking their children to school, I noticed many of them were shielded by parasols, a hangover from the old days when pale skin signified aristocracy and brown skin meant fieldworker. I knew I should follow the legions of Japanese women who used parasols since their girlhood and had entered their fifties and sixties with absolutely unlined faces. It was hard, though, because my skin rarely burned; it just soaked up the rays and glowed. That’s what it had felt like when Wajin had touched me: as if I had been caressed by the sun.

None of the restaurants was open yet, so I killed some time sitting on a bench near the grounds of Hachiman Shrine, Kamakura’s grandest Shinto worship site. Workmen were everywhere, erecting concession stands that were being decorated with artificial flowers and colorful streamers, symbols of the upcoming Tanabata festival. I overheard some workers talking about an archery demonstration. They needed to block off a long, narrow stretch of roadway that would be used for the horseback riders—the question was, how would they get all the VIP seats around the path? And how close could the seats be to the archers, while still remaining safe?

By now it was 9
A
.
M
., so Hugh would be off at work and I could safely call the answering machine. I went to a pay phone, slid in two hundred yen, and dialed.

“Yo.” Angus answered the phone sounding as though he was chewing something.

“Sorry to disturb you, Angus. If you hang up, I’ll just phone back and check the answering machine.”

“Rei?” Angus sounded gleeful. “Hanging up’s a daft idea, seeing as Shug already listened to your calls and erased them.”

“Tell Hugh he’s a bastard. To think of how I’ve made sure he gets all his messages!”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he grumbled. “It was just some guy who left a message in Japanese we couldn’t understand. I think my bro had a feeling who it was because he started going on about Japanese Elvis.”

“Oh, that’s Jun Kuroi! Anyone else?”

“Well . . .” Angus paused. “The last call was from a guy speaking English with an accent thicker than yogurt.”

Mohsen. I’d have to track him down in Ameyoko Alley. “Thanks, Angus. I’ll get going now.”

“Don’t you want to talk to me, hear how I’m doing?”

“I know Lieutenant Hata found out about your telephone cards and spared you. Do you know how lucky you are? If only you knew what Japanese prisons are like.” Lounging in a phone booth forty kilometers from his smirking face, I felt free to be frank.

“Well, that cop kept my cards, so I can’t call my friends overseas without using the flat telephone. You’d hate it. I can picture you ranting and raving!”

“It sounds like you miss me,” I said sarcastically.

“Well, even
you’re
better than my brother’s new girlfriend, that bitch from upstairs—”

Winnie Clancy? I was so shocked I temporarily lost my grip on the receiver. I regained it and said, “Winnie’s
married
.”

“That isn’t stopping her. She drops in for supper nightly. It’s always meat—I reckon that between us we’ve put on half a stone. I can’t speak for Shug, but I’ve got terrible indigestion.”

“Don’t tell me you want to become a vegan.” I tried to concentrate on that irony and not the disturbing fact that Winnie had supplanted me.

“I’m not! All I’m suggesting is that you should drop by for a meal sometime. And stay afterward. Winnie’s bum is wearing a hole in the sofa, and the next thing you know, it’ll be the bed.”

“I understand. But it’s impossible—it’s over between Hugh and me.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be such a quitter.” Angus’s words hung like a taunt as I hung up mad at Hugh, and also at myself.

After leaving frantic messages for Jun Kuroi on all five of his telephone numbers, I ordered a sugar-lemon crêpe and coffee at the crêpe shop I’d gone to with Mrs. Kita. The middle-aged woman spreading the crêpe batter on the huge skillet smiled at me as if she knew how long I’d been waiting for something to eat. I smiled back. With caffeine and sugar in my system, I was finally ready to work.

I made a quick circuit of all the antiques shops in the central district. Dealers did not usually enjoy showing old scrolls, given that the delicate paper rolls had to be removed from their snug wooden boxes, unrolled, and displayed without creating tears or wrinkles, and then rolled up again. I was primarily trying to gauge the price of early-twentieth-century scrolls.

I confessed my situation to the owner of Maeda Antiques, a small shop lying farther to the north where I’d bought wood-block prints before. Instead of unrolling her inventory, Mrs. Maeda let me page through an orderly photo portfolio of the scrolls she owned. This way neither of us would waste time.

“Who knows, I might find the perfect thing here. And I have other clients, I’m always on the lookout.”

“At least you’re honest about what you’re doing,” Mrs. Maeda said. “Not like some of them.”

“Really?” I stopped flipping through the pictures.

“Oh, there are some temple families who come in and claim our Zen scrolls and relics are their property.”

“Lots of religious relics come from temples. What do they want you to do, give it back?”

“Some store owners have, out of fear. No one wants to offend Buddha.” She made a face. “Or a particular abbot’s wife. When that lady came and claimed one of my scrolls was stolen property, I asked her to show me insurance papers or some proof her husband’s family had it stolen. Of course, she had nothing.”

A picture came to me of Nana Mihori’s vast home, where the artwork rotated weekly. “This woman . . . she’s very well known? She’s in the Green and Pristine Society?”

“That’s right. And immediately after I refused to give her my scroll for free, No S
TOPPING
signs were placed on both sides of the street. With no place to park a car, you can imagine how my customers have disappeared.”

“What a shame,” I mourned, feeling especially bad that I, one of her few walk-ins, wasn’t able to buy something.

“Sometimes I wonder if I was foolish to have with-held what she wanted. If I’d given her the scroll, I’d have lost one hundred thousand yen. I’ve lost far more in sales, and I’ve even lost my assistant, Sato-san, who used to drive over each afternoon to cover for me. Now she can’t come because there’s no parking place!”

“She was a salesclerk?” I was getting an idea.

“That’s right. The afternoons are when I must pick my granddaughter up from kindergarten, so I have to close the shop. It’s just awful.”

“I’ll work afternoons for you,” I offered. I had expected Mrs. Maeda to look either ecstatic or horrified. Instead, she looked confused. “I need a job. And a place to make and receive some business phone calls,” I continued, determined to be honest.

“But I don’t know you,” she faltered.

“You mean I’ve come in here a half dozen times, but you don’t know my family, my blood type, whatever!” I was getting upset. “Being foreign, I don’t have an extensive résumé, but I have some references in the antiques community—my friend Mr. Ishida in Tokyo, for example.”

“How are you a foreigner? Your name is Shimura.”

“I’m from California,” I said, pleased that she’d accepted me as Japanese.

“So you speak English!” Her eyes were huge.

“A little Spanish, too.”

“You’ll be wonderful for the tourists! There have been several occasions that
gaijin
have come, and I did not understand what they wanted.”

“Foreigners
do
need special handling,” I agreed. “They respond very well to discounts.”

“I can pay you just twelve hundred yen an hour, but I could offer you a trade discount . . . maybe forty percent off?”

“Really?” With a rate like that, maybe I could afford something for Mrs. Kita.

“It’s the least I can do, and it will bring me some business, don’t you think?”

Yoko-san, as I could now address her, had shown me around the whole shop by lunchtime. I rescued a cache of
obi
—brocade
kimono
sashes—she had jammed in a back storeroom. I also convinced her to help me hang out a colorful carp banner to fly in the wind.

“That’s for the boys’ day celebration. I cannot hang it in late summer.”

“It’s eye-catching and lets people know we’re open,” I told her. After she left, I walked around the small shop, taking stock of it and my situation. Once I would have thought it a step down to work as a store saleswoman, but what Yoko was paying me would cover my daily expenses, and I could start saving for the deposit on the next apartment I rented.

She was right that business was slow. I had just two customers that afternoon—one of whom paid eight thousand yen for an
obi.
I had time to telephone Mrs. Kita about the preliminary scroll selections I’d made. She promised to come in and choose something the following afternoon.

Closing time, five o’clock, came soon. I lingered but at last locked up and dropped the key back through the shop mailbox. Instead of taking the train, I walked back to Horin-ji. My feet dragged, and I realized how much I didn’t want to get there. Wajin knew too much about me, and the things I was learning about Nana Mihori were terrifying.

I approached the Mihori residence, thinking my pocket phone would be fully charged by now. I lurked in the bushes, watching Miss Tanaka take down the family’s dry laundry. My black cotton panties, plain T-shirt, and shorts were also drying on the laundry rack. She frowned at them, and I resolved to do any further washing with my own two hands in the forest stream.