Landen’s voice once again conveyed the well-rehearsed patience she knew. He was lecturing. The passion had gone, the eyebrow had stopped moving. He said, “Insight into shunyata is essential in order to leave the painful experience of life and become a Buddha.”
“Aha,” she said.
“Buddha-nature inside every man,” the roshi said.
“Also inside every woman?”
The roshi nodded with a laugh. “Also inside every woman. Buddha-nature own-nature. Understand? Own-nature.”
“Own-nature?” she repeated, at a loss.
“Everyone has the Buddha-nature inside them. It’s their own nature,” Landen said.
The harsh staccato noise of hammer blows sounded from outside. The two monks were knocking the fountain stones into place. It was getting dark, and it was a moment before Bonì noticed that a light snow was falling. Watery, almost transparent flakes. Either the cat had gone or it had merged into the gray light of dusk.
A child near to the place where Niksch had been murdered and Taro was last seen. A child in the Kanzan-an, where Taro had lived.
Bermann would have laughed in her face if he’d known what she was thinking.
Bermann stuck to probabilities and logic, whereas she looked for connections, analogies, systems. Bermann was head of Section 11, she was on sick leave.
She looked at the roshi and he returned her gaze, nodding. In his eyes she could see toughness, severity and anger, but also wisdom and understanding.
Landen’s comments about unfamiliarity filled her head. The idea that you could never really understand another person, particularly not someone from a different culture. She realized that she had no idea what the roshi was thinking, feeling or wanting just at that moment. What he was seeing.
She didn’t know much about Landen either.
What about herself? She knew that in her handbag there were bottles wrapped in newspaper. That in Freiburg a very young psychologist was waiting for her call. That she was in the process of falling in love with a married intellectual whose wife was pregnant. That she desired the hand of an underage sushi-seller on parts of her body where it ought not to be.
With a tired smile she asked, “Are there young Zensus in Kanzan-an, roshi? Children?”
Landen translated.
“No,” the roshi said in English. “No children in Kanzan-an.”
9
Fifteen minutes later it was almost dark. Watery snow was still falling but didn’t settle. The gong resounded and then fell silent. They stood at the entrance, watching the roshi as he led the monks and nuns across the clearing to the “dharma hall” for a teisho, a presentation.
“Don’t rush to any conclusions,” Landen said, close behind her.
“You saw the boy too.”
“Yes, but unlike you I trust the roshi. These people are different. They’re not interested in the things people lie about. They have overcome all human desire, which is the fundamental problem behind everything, do you understand? Without desire there would be no suffering. All that these people need and are looking for they can find within themselves.”
A French novice had been given the job of showing them around the monastery. His shaved head was covered in a fuzz of blond hair. His nose was running.
It was dark in the corridors. No electric light China of Kanzan, no electric light here. The novice was carrying an oil lamp. Candlesticks were screwed to the walls, but only a few candles were alight. The further they went into the Kanzan-an, the less hospitable, the quieter, the eerier it became. If it was only in places like this that you found the things inside you, she would rather do without.
The novice opened a door. A large kitchen. Candles flickered in holders on the walls. No stove, but a fireplace in the middle of the room, open on all sides. Here it was almost warm. As far as she could make out, the simple wooden shelves were perfectly clean.
“This is where we cook,” the novice said, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his habit.
Landen asked Louise to translate as he spoke no French. He knew Japanese, Sanskrit and possibly Tibetan, but not the language of the country he lived barely nineteen miles from. She resisted making a comment. “This is the kitchen,” she said amicably.
“Aha.”
“Why did you and the roshi laugh earlier on?”
Landen smiled but didn’t reply.
They continued with their tour. A common room with raffia mats and cushions to sit on. A study with a desk, an old-fashioned rotary telephone and white folders on a tall shelf. She remembered that on Sunday she’d left a message on the Kanzan-an answering machine. She’d asked to be called back. Nobody had.
By then Niksch was probably already dead.
Then Anne Wallmer had come into her office and Hollerer had called without saying anything, because he couldn’t.
“Ask about the boy,” Landen said.
“Later.”
“The visitors’ lavatory,” the novice said, pointing to a door as they walked past.
She excused herself and entered the bathroom, where she was hit by a damp chill. An oil lamp gave off a weak light. Beside the door was a wash basin and the toilet stood in darkness at the end of a sixteen-foot-long narrow room.
She felt her way along the wall. The window above the toilet was open. She covered the seat in toilet paper, overcame her dread of the cold and sat down. A cool draft blew around her head. At least it’s not an outhouse, she thought, urinating noisily.
At the basin she let glacial water run over the tips of her fingers. The towel beside it was wet and clammy. Thank God she had something to warm herself with.
As they walked on Bonì asked the novice where the money came from to maintain the Kanzan-an and those living here. He was coy in his response, explaining that he hadn’t been in the monastery long. There were some things he didn’t know, in particular which information he was allowed to impart and which not.
“Can you say what your name is?”
He laughed. “Of course. My real name is Georges Lazare, but as a monk I’ll be called Ikku.”
“How should I address you?”
“As Georges.”
“Because you’re not a monk yet?”
“Exactly.”
“And what’s your opinion on the murder of police officers, Georges? As a person, as a novice and as a future monk?”
Georges said nothing.
“Good,” she said, satisfied.
At nearby markets the monks and nuns sold fruit and vegetables they grew themselves, as well as small objects they crafted. Apart from that the monastery relied on donations. Sometimes guests came to the Kanzan-an for a few days, a week or a month. They paid what they wanted to pay. The second floor was reserved for these guests, above that were the monks’ cells. The nuns lived on the ground floor.
She translated for Landen. Impatience lurked in his eyes. Bonì raised a finger as a warning. “And Roshi Bukan?” she asked. “Where does he live?”
“Where he spends his time.”
“And where does he spend his time at night?”
“In a cave in the forest.”
“Like Kanzan?”
In the diffuse light of the oil lamp she could only surmise that Georges was nodding. Kanzan cave, Bukan cave, the roshi said in her head.
They went up a wide staircase. On the second floor a corridor ran alongside the windows at the front of the building, its shape following the gentle curvature of the facade. The corridor appeared to be empty. Wooden doors led to the guest rooms. Candle holders were fixed to the walls between the windows. Georges lit the first one and was about to head up to the third floor.
She pointed at one of the doors. “May I?”
Georges nodded uncertainly and passed her the lamp. She hesitated for a moment, then opened the door. This was more like a prison cell than a guest room: a small, stone rectangle with a mattress, a duvet, candle holder, candles. A tiny window with no glass gave on to the rear of the Kanzan-an.
Georges’ face was pinched and anxious. His eyes looked pensive, as if he didn’t yet know whether his retreat to the Kanzan-an had been the right decision. His expression conveyed hope and worry. Courage and feebleness. He put his hands together in front of his stomach, in the Christian way with his fingers crossed. “Yes. We need nothing more.”
She took a few steps along the windows. Georges and Landen did not follow. In the darkness outside there shone a yellow eye: the dharma hall. She thought she could make out the shadows of people sitting. But no movement.
She stopped at the window at which she had caught sight of the boy. A child in the forest to the east of Liebau, where Taro had vanished; a child in the Kanzan-an, where Taro had lived.
She wondered how many children must be living in the Mulhouse–Freiburg area. Tens of thousands. She pictured Bermann putting his head in his hands.
No children in Kanzan-an.
She went back to Georges and Landen. “Are there visitors staying here at the moment?”
“Yes.”
“Visitors with children?”
Georges laughed again. His laugh was gentle and spontaneous. She liked this, for a while it made up for his indecision. “I’d be more inclined to say: visitors with adults. Currently we have eight children visiting with three carers.”
“What sort of children?”
Georges didn’t know the details. He’d heard that they were orphans from the Far East. Children who’d been rescued from miserable existences to begin a new life here.
“Here? At the Kanzan-an?”
“In Europe.” Charitable organizations such as UNICEF and Terre des hommes were picking up children from the streets of large cities in the Far East and accommodating them in Buddhist or Christian children’s homes. For some they had managed to find European adoptive parents, for the children at the Kanzan-an, for example. They were recuperating from the strain of the trip before being taken on to their new families.
“Who would have thought it?” Bonì said to Landen. “A refuge of humanity in a tomb like this.” She gave the lamp back to Georges.
As they made their way up to the third floor she summarized for Landen what she’d found out. Then she asked him to repeat in German the exact words he’d used when enquiring about young pupils at the Kanzan-an. Landen said he’d asked whether there were children amongst the Zen pupils.
She sighed. No. No children in Kanzan-an.
Taro’s cell resembled the one they’d seen on the second floor, the only difference being that a dark habit hung on the wall. This room didn’t look lived in either. For several minutes she stared at the mattress, the window and habit, waiting for the intuitive certainty that one day Taro would return here. It did not come.
She closed the door softly, walked to the windows and looked once more toward the invisible clearing. In the darkness she saw the little yellow eye.
She was still at the beginning. The Kanzan-an hadn’t yet imparted its secret.
They went down the stairs in silence. Ahead of them, Georges didn’t hide the fact that he was in a hurry. His sandals slapped hectically on the steps, his indecision now apparently joined by unease. Did he think he’d said too much? Was he afraid of the roshi’s anger? Or perhaps he was simply keen to make it over to the little yellow eye.
On the second-floor landing he stopped and lifted the lamp. The soft light fell on to the alert, round face of a child. At a window stood the boy.
“Well, well,” Landen said, bending over as the boy came to him.
The boy began to speak. He pointed to Louise and looked at her briefly, before turning back to Landen and pointing at him. Then he was silent.
Landen cleared his throat. “He’s from Vietnam.”
“What’s he saying?”
“I’m afraid I don’t . . .” He paused. There were noises in the darkness. A door had been opened and dull footsteps could be heard. Bonì, Landen and the young novice peered into the corridor but could see nothing. Only the boy was completely still.
The footsteps hurried closer. A woman who looked central European came into the light. “Please forgive me,” she said in German. “Pham?”
She spoke with the boy in Vietnamese for a while. Her voice was soft and comforting. Then she looked at Landen, now upright again. “He thought you were his new parents.” She smiled ruefully. “But he’s going to have to wait a few more days.”
Louise guessed the woman was in her mid-forties. She was wearing a puffa jacket, jeans and walking boots. Her expression and bearing were confident. “Annegret Schelling,” she said, offering her hand.
The boy had put an arm around her left leg. Annegret stroked his head. “Eight more sleeps,” she said in German. “Then it’s time. Make a wish that he gets good parents. Goodbye.” A wink, a smile, and then she vanished into the dark corridor, holding the boy’s hand.
Georges escorted them outside. Louise thought feverishly of more questions she might ask him. Questions Muller, Schneider and Wallmer hadn’t asked. Questions leading to answers to other questions. Why had Taro left here in the middle of the night? How had he been injured? Why hadn’t he wanted to open up to Landen, or to anybody else? Why had he been followed by men who didn’t shy away from killing police officers?
Georges gave them the lamp to find their way back to the parking lot and folded his hands over his chest. Then he hurried off to the dharma hall.
“So what now?” Landen said. “Back to your holiday?”
“Exactly.” She took the lamp from his hand and led the way.
It struck her only when she was back in the forest that Taro’s cell had not just been free of all personal items, but of religious ones too. No Buddhist texts, no images of the Buddha or other holy people. She asked Landen why. He told her that there were different schools of Buddhism, and in some of them sutras, devotional objects and Buddhist iconography played little or no role. How lonely and unsafe she would feel with a religion like that, she thought. No sacred books, no gods, no objects. Subject only to what might come from outside or from within.
Landen was still talking. She listened to the tone of his beautiful, boring voice and wondered whether to turn and kiss him. Whether to rip the clothes from his body, to see just how exciting he could be.
But then he would have tasted the alcohol on her breath.
Their two vehicles were the only ones left in the lot. She extinguished the lamp and placed it at the end of the path. “Will you keep me up to date with developments?” Landen said. She nodded, and they got into their cars.
Landen turned his car. When the rear of the Volvo was briefly higher than the hood, its headlights lit up the ground immediately in front. Deep, broad tire marks were visible in the muddy earth.
Images came flooding back. She saw a snowy field, glistening and waxen in the moonlight. Impressions of broad tires in the slush alongside the forest. Niksch’s dead body.
Cursing, she leaped out of the car and waved at Landen to stop. She could hear him putting on the handbrake.
“Don’t ask,” she said.
For several seconds she stared at the marks on the ground. There was a similarity, at least. But what did that mean?
Louise angrily kneaded her anorak pockets. Children’s footprints, tire marks—her thought processes grew more and more abstruse, her attempts to make connections ever more helpless. How many off-road vehicles were there in the Mulhouse–Freiburg area?
Probably fewer than there were children, at least. But still the number must run into the hundreds. She cursed again.
“What’s wrong?” Landen said.
She gestured to him to be quiet.
What make of car had been parked beside Landen’s Volvo? She hadn’t really looked at it because the Volvo was in front. She’d seen the Freiburg license plate, put her hand on the hood of the Volvo, peered in and thought only of Landen’s tidiness.
&nb
sp; “Do you remember the car that was parked next to yours?”
“No, I don’t pay attention to cars. I mean, I’m not interested in cars.”
“Small, big? Dark, light? Low, high?”
Landen sighed. “Something . . . big, light.”
“What do you mean ‘light’?”
“Light brown, beige, maybe gray. Light blue. Dark yellow. Something in that direction.”
“What sort of direction is that, then?”
Landen shrugged and grinned.
“Got a camera with you?”
He shook his head.
“Can you draw?”
“Not especially well.”
“Christ, what can you do? I mean, can you do anything useful?”
“Yes, I could drive myself home.”
But he made no move to get back into his car.
She apologized reluctantly and kneeled beside the spot where the tire tracks were most distinct. Tire identification was Lederle’s domain. Bermann used to say that Lederle could even tell you from the tire marks what people in the car had been thinking.
Louise thought for a moment. In the car she had some hairspray to fix the marks, but no plaster. She fetched a measuring tape from the trunk, took her notebook and pen from her pocket and kneeled down again. She measured the width of the tires and tracks, and the depth of the impression. Where the car had been parked she managed to get an approximation of the wheel base. The tread was asymmetrical: circumferential grooves on the right, lateral on the left.
Landen watched her in silence and with evident interest in what she was doing.
Bonì turned in such a way that he couldn’t watch over her shoulder and began to draw. She used four pieces of paper and then gave up, her left hand was trembling too much. She couldn’t manage anything better than irregular jagged lines and unidentifiable shapes.
“OK,” she said, sinking on to her bottom. “You might as well leave now; I’m going to be here a while longer.”
Landen did not respond.
The cold and damp assailed her skin. She wished she’d kissed him earlier. She wished Roshi Bukan were here. She wished she had been in Niksch’s place on Sunday.
Zen and the Art of Murder Page 12