Authors: Sujata Massey
“But there’s a tourist group coming up here this afternoon! Because of the festival, they’re reopening the caves. Didn’t you see the notice?”
“Damn,” Jun said. “I wish I knew what to do. If I screw up . . .”
“I’d help you look if you took off my blindfold,” I offered.
“You stay here. I’ll check it out myself.” He moved off rapidly, and I was alone again. I started pulling at the ropes. My left hand was bleeding heavily now, the cut reopened by all the stress I’d put on it. I was almost grateful for the way the liquid was helping the rope slide more easily over my skin, until I realized what the bleeding signified: a deep cut. I was losing blood.
Unfortunately, the rope was still too tight to pass over my hands. I struggled to stand up, my calves and feet numb from the kneeling position Wajin had forced me to take. I stretched my bound arms back and hit the cave wall. I moved my hands across it and eventually found a small but sharp rocky outcropping. I hooked my roped wrists over it and pulled.
I had hoped to loosen my bonds, but instead they tightened into a noose. I was hung up on the wall, just as the sounds of Jun’s footsteps in the chamber on the other side of the wall seemed to be getting louder.
How I longed for Hugh’s Swiss Army Knife key chain, or simply Hugh. A tear rolled down my face underneath the suffocating mask. I couldn’t end this way. If the rope had lodged around the rock, it could be dislodged. Trying to think rationally, I sidled closer to the wall so the tension around my wrists let up slightly. Through five minutes of careful shifting, I managed to loosen the rope enough so I could unhitch myself from the rock.
I sank down to the cave floor, pressing my abused, bleeding hands against the ground. Feeling some loose pieces of straw, I realized the rope had started to fray.
I had been looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Instead of trying to slip out of the tightly tied rope, I needed to wear it down. I moved around the cave, feeling the wall with my fingers until I came to a small hollow place with rough edges, probably a tiny altar.
I began rubbing the thinnest section of my rope bindings against its craggy edge, over and over again. I knew the rope was wearing down when I got close enough to scrape my skin.
“Where are you?” Jun called. Was he back in the cave? No, I decided. He had a flashlight and I would have noticed its brightness through my blindfold. Jun was calling to me from another place because he wanted to hear the sound of my voice. He was lost. Akemi had warned me that the caves had confusing tunnels. I’d counted on that when I’d told him to look for Mr. Ishida’s body.
I stayed silent and rubbed the rope against the sharp edge of the altar. After a few more minutes, my hand bled from what felt like five dozen new cuts. I held in the pain and finally, when I could feel blood running down the length of my forearms, the last few fibers broke. I wiggled my fingers, letting the circulation return. They tingled and throbbed deliciously with life as I tore off the mask and the black cloth covering my head.
I opened my eyes into velvety blackness. Wajin had been smart to stick me in a cave, knowing that even if I got the blindfold off, I’d still be unable to see. I began walking along the length of the wall, counting my steps so I wouldn’t lose my orientation. I felt along the wall until my hand slipped into a second roughly hewn altar. This one had a tiny stub of a wax candle and, next to it, a small wooden box. I slid the box open and touched five small wooden sticks. Matches. Either they had been left over from holy rites or they had been placed there by Wajin to use for my torture.
I dragged the first match along the box’s rough side and got a whiff of smoke. I tried again, and the match broke. This process repeated with the second and third match. The fourth one lit. I transferred its flame to the candle stub and my prison was illuminated.
I was standing in a cavern only about six feet high. There was a three-foot opening on one side that I presumed led to the tunnel where Jun had gone. The far end of the cavern had an arched exit about four feet high. This was probably the way Kazuhito had brought me in, when I’d had to stoop to keep from hitting my head.
“Rei? Answer me!” Jun called, more angrily this time.
I took the candle with me and moved through the archway. There was a fork; I could go one of two ways. I didn’t recall which way I’d turned coming in. I raised the tiny inch of candle I had left, trying to see into each passage. Suddenly inspired, I lowered the candle. In the cave’s soft earth floor I saw footprints. Hoping that I was following the path of Wajin’s exit, I stepped carefully in the marks.
I walked another minute before I saw light. I couldn’t contain myself. I burst into a gallop toward the brilliant midday sun. Heat had never felt so good. Outside the caves were green leaves and grass and the edge of a steep hill. I could look down into the valley and see the tiled roofs of the temple buildings spread out like a toy village. Winding my way down would take time. I scraped blood off the face of my watch and saw it was almost 2
P
.
M
. Wajin would be through with the foreigners’ orientation, ready to carry out the next part of his plan.
I checked Mr. Ishida’s van for keys; finding none, I began running down the mountain. As I moved through the trees I tripped over a carved bamboo walking staff. Mr. Ishida’s staff. Wajin must have dropped it after he killed Mr. Ishida. I picked up the staff and decided to take it with me as a memory of my friend—and as a possible weapon should I encounter Wajin.
I had almost reached the temple grounds when I heard the crunching sound of feet on leaves. Unfortunately, the bamboo trees were too skinny to hide behind. I threw myself to the ground.
Two elementary-school-age boys in school uniforms appeared. I rose, preparing to ask them to call for help, but upon seeing me, both boys jumped back.
“It’s an evil spirit!” the smaller one cried.
The sight of me rising up in a bloodstained Zen robe probably made them think I was a figure from a ghost story. I opened my mouth, meaning to reassure them, but my voice croaked oddly. I cleared my throat and tried speaking again, but the boys fled.
I abandoned the robe under a bush and continued toward the temple grounds. The black Toyota Mega Cruiser was outside the Mihori residence. Now I understood it was the vehicle Wajin drove down the mountain.
I crawled through the Mihoris’ garden, each imprint of my left hand leaving a rusty stain. I paused when I spotted a laundry basket filled with wet clothing.
Miss Tanaka was pinning up a pair of Akemi’s drawstring pants on the metal laundry frame. Her face, turned toward the matters at hand, reflected the same concentration Akemi bore during judo practice. Should she clip the waist of the heavy cotton pants with two laundry clips or three? I watched her delay the decision, thinking what odd behavior it was for someone who hung out Akemi’s laundry every day.
She knew about the scroll but, unlike her sons, hadn’t tried to take my life. Not yet. I crawled faster across the grass.
I was almost to the garden gate when Miss Tanaka finished pinning up the pants and bent down to take out another piece of clothing. As she looked downward our eyes met. She cried out.
“Daijobu, daijobu”
I mouthed at her, slowly getting to my feet, telling her that it was okay. The window screen shifted open. As she turned to look, I sprinted for the garden gate.
“It’s that Shimura! She’s still around!” Miss Tanaka said.
“We must notify the guards at the gate,” her son Wajin said in his powerful priest’s voice. “She must be apprehended.”
“She’s a nuisance, but I hardly think that’s necessary,” Miss Tanaka grumbled.
“She has stolen property. An Important Cultural Property that belongs to the temple!”
I dashed away from the residence and through the temple grounds. The loyal retainers who worked at the temple entrance as guards would obey Wajin without question. They would return me to him, and I’d never see any police. My only hope of reaching help would be by dialing 110, but the public telephone was located in an open area near the main entrance and its guards.
I stared ahead at the milling tourists, imagining how they’d react when they saw the blood on me. They might panic, so I had to keep my distance.
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.
“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.”