Zen Attitude

by Sujata Massey

  “I’m a car salesman. It’s my job to find people who don’t want to be found. I like to sell my clients a new car every other year, so that means I call or visit them every month to maintain a strong relationship. They get sick of me sometimes.” Jun twinkled at me. “But I always find them.”

  That sounded good. As we ran in and out of various antiques stores, it turned out that everyone did know Jun by name. I also learned that he was the son of the Toyota dealership owner, a fact he had kept to himself.

  Nao Sakai wasn’t in flush circumstances, according to an antiques dealer who had a shop near Jun’s fabled mineral bath. Sakai had maintained pretty poor stock until recently. Since he had apparently abandoned his leased space within Hita Fine Arts, it was a good opportunity for others. There would probably be a bidding war to get into that prime second-floor location near the T-shirts and stamps.

  That made me laugh bitterly as we left the shop. Jun suggested a hot bath for relaxation’s sake, but I dismissed the idea and asked him to take me to the outskirts of Hita for a peek at the dreary, tin-walled house that Jun’s antiques dealer friend said Mr. Sakai had rented. No one answered the door, but the elderly housewife living next door told us that a moving company had packed up Sakai’s possessions the night before. The movers had taken all the antiques, leaving Sakai’s cheap contemporary furniture on the trash heap out back. Mr Sakai hadn’t said where he was going, but his wife had very kindly given her their television as a going-away present.

  “This is very mysterious,” Jun Kuroi said as we drove away. “Why would he give away his television? And if he was planning some big rip-off, why did he even bother to send the tansu to your apartment in Tokyo? He could have taken your money and kept the tansu for himself.”

  “The moving company should be able to tell us where the furniture was headed,” I thought aloud. “I need to find it.”

  “Old Granny didn’t remember the company’s name. She was too busy fussing with her new television, probably,” Jun said.

  I would have to telephone all the moving companies in the area. Feeling overwhelmed, I asked Jun to drop me off at the train station.

  “Don’t be sad, Rei-san. If I do enough driving around, I’ll find the creep,” Jun promised as he pulled into the station’s taxi stand, oblivious as always to traffic rules.

  “He’s gone. I know he’s not in Hita any longer.” I tried to open the passenger door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Sorry! I use the childproof feature on that side,” Jun said, hitting a button on his door to free me. “It’s another way to keep the client with me a little longer.”

  I laughed despite myself. “You’re incredible.”

  “That’s what all the girls say.” Jun winked at me. “I’m good at everything, Onēsan. I’ll do what I can to hunt down the creep.”

  “You do that,” I said, expecting nothing.

  Chapter 4

  It was high time I leveled with Nana Mihori. I rehearsed my explanation during the ride to her house on the temple grounds in North Kamakura. By the time I’d gotten off the train and walked the fifteen minutes to Horin-ji, I was in a state of panic. I couldn’t put anything past Nana Mihori. She had introduced herself to me as a housewife who liked antiques, but I knew her other hobby was running the Kamakura Green and Pristine Society, a local preservation group. Last year a nouveau riche developer had tried building condominiums on a vacant lot for sale in the Kamakura hills. Nana Mihori stopped the plan within a week of its proposal, and when the developer had complained to the press about it, she masterminded a smear campaign against him that shut him out of a deal in another town. His wife was dropped from her women’s club, his son was denied admission to good high schools—or so the rumor went.

  I passed through the temple entrance, barely taking note of its famous nio, carved wooden statues of musclemen with angry expressions. The first time I’d seen them I’d lingered to study their fine carving, but today I headed directly to the abbot’s residence. The wooded grounds were lovely at this time of year, filled with blooming bushes of dark blue hydrangea that thrived in Horin-ji’s perfectly acid soil. My heels sank into this special earth, causing me to tread more slowly as I approached the low stone wall that set the Mihoris’ house off from the temple complex.

  Nana Mihori had sounded pleased when I’d called from Kita-Kamakura Station asking if I could drop in. Drop in and drop the bomb, I thought, crunching my way up the driveway made of river pebbles. A black four-wheel-drive truck was parked in the driveway; I gave it a brief glance because Hugh had been talking about trading the Windom for something more suited to hauling antique furniture. Toyota Mega Cruiser, it was called. Jun Kuroi would have appreciated it. I wondered who drove the car. I couldn’t picture Nana Mihori, who was so feminine that no one ever had seen her in a pair of slacks, behind its wheel.

  I reached the residence, which looked as though it had always been there, but was actually only five years old. The day after Nana Mihori’s tyrannical mother-in-law died, Nana had ordered destruction of the mildew-covered house that had been good enough for the last two generations of Mihoris. Nana found an architect who could re-create an eighteenth-century aristocrat’s villa. The end result was magnificent. A blue tiled roof with low eaves covered the sprawling white U-shaped compound. The house’s many windows stretched from floor to ceiling, giving grand views of the garden, filled with rare camellia trees. Behind that lay something really interesting: the dojo, a judo gymnasium where Nana’s daughter Akemi practiced.

  Horin-ji’s wooden nio looked fierce, but the real fighter on the premises was Akemi, who had been a member of the Japanese women’s judo team at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. That was the first time judo was featured as an Olympic sport for women, and Akemi had been predicted to win gold in the middleweight women’s class. But she had performed abysmally, disappointing the whole nation and even me, rooting for the Japanese team from my television at home in San Francisco.

  After Seoul, a curse seemed to linger on Akemi, and she never placed in competition again. Now she was thirty, judged over the hill but still capable of participating in occasional exhibition matches at schools and sports centers around the country. I’d glimpsed her once, cutting through the Mihori home in her black-belted judo uniform, but she had ignored me.

  Today the doors to Akemi’s dojo stood wide open, and I heard thudding sounds punctuated by sharp breathing and the occasional yell. I sidled closer to get a peek.

  In the middle of the rubber-matted floor, a woman and man were locked against each other. They were embracing so tightly it almost looked like a lovers’ clinch. The man, at least fifty pounds heavier than Akemi, was using his superior weight to push against her. She couldn’t be knocked over; with each push she merely moved with him, not relaxing her grip. They minced back and forth like this for a few minutes, their heavy breathing the only sign of how hard they were working.

  The fullness of the sweaty air in the room mixed with pollen outside, and suddenly I knew I was going to sneeze. When the explosion came, the man’s head jerked toward the door and Akemi dug her hip under his pelvis and threw him. His arm banged the mat as he yelled.

  I scooted off and retraced my steps to the Mihoris’ front door, where I buzzed the entry button. After a minute Miss Tanaka, the Mihoris’ housekeeper, showed me in, helping me remove my shoes in the spacious, granite-paved entryway. As I put on a pair of straw summer slippers I wondered if Miss Tanaka could smell the seawater that had dried on my suit after the collision with the fishmonger. Her face remained unmoving, but I thought her nose twitched.

  “Please, you can go on alone.” Miss Tanaka waved me onward, confirming my suspicions.

  I’d been in the house several times before, so I knew my way through the series of sliding doors and vast, tatami-floored rooms filled with exquisite Zen paintings, ancient ceramics, and the other treasures that a priestly Zen family had accumulated over six hundred years. This was only a fraction of what the Mihoris
owned; everything else was in storage in the temple. I followed the sound of recorded classical koto music until I found the room Mrs. Mihori used as her personal office. She was kneeling at a low table covered with art books.

  “I’m disturbing you,” I said, offering the greeting used when entering someone else’s space.

  “Please come in. You must be very warm!” Nana’s eyes glided over my wrinkled suit. “Probably you were hoping for air-conditioning. I’m sorry we have such a traditional home.”

  “Oh, I love tradition! And the breeze from the garden is very refreshing,” I said, gesturing to the windows open along two sides of the room. The other wall was defined by an ornately gilded Buddhist shrine holding two formal black-and-white photographs of an elderly man in a business suit and a woman wearing kimono, probably Mrs. Mihori’s deceased parents.

  “Miss Tanaka will bring us a fan to help move the air. You drink mugi-cha, don’t you?” My hostess poured cool barley tea for me into a dark earthen-ware cup.

  “This is much nicer than the kind I have at home. Where did you find it?” I asked after I’d taken a sip.

  “I buy it at the tea shop near Kamakura Station. Surely you’ve seen it,” Miss Tanaka said as she came into the room carrying a small electric fan. I wondered how long she had been standing outside the door listening.

  “I think I’ve seen the shop. Are the other types of tea sold there such good quality?” I asked, redirecting my question in the hopes of pleasing Miss Tanaka.

  “Yes, it’s all very high quality. I buy all my lady’s tea there, including the special macha blend she uses for tea ceremony.”

  “I didn’t know you performed the tea ceremony,” I said to Nana Mihori when we were alone.

  “Yes, I’ve been a member of the local tea society for decades. Next week, in fact, I’m going to a convention of tea masters that I’m excited about. But tea is boring for a young woman like you, probably!” Nana Mihori smoothed a tendril that had escaped from her sleek chignon.

  “Actually, I wish there were a way I could try it without having to undertake a regular class.” Since I planned to live a long while in Japan, it was time I learned how to whisk powdered tea leaves and hot water into the perfect stage of froth and pour it in the prescribed manner for my guests. At least my aunt said so.

  “Maybe I could give you a private class. After all, you’ve done me such a marvelous favor with the tansu!” Mrs. Mihori smiled, signaling she was ready to talk about our deal.

  “I need to explain about something that came up,” I began.

  “Before you say anything, I wish to show you where I want the tansu to be placed. I think you’ll be surprised.” Nana rose to her feet, smoothing down her dull mauve kimono.

  “The entryway? Your living room?” I guessed aloud, and Nana shook her head, smiling. I remembered then that foreigners were usually excited to display antique tansu in reception rooms, while Japanese people liked them where they traditionally belonged: in bedrooms, to hold clothing and blankets.

  “This is where the vice abbot—my nephew Kazuhito—sleeps. He already has a great appreciation of antiques.” Mrs. Mihori slid open a door to a traditional room floored in tatami. There was no bed; I imagined a futon was rolled up in the closet. My eye was struck by the emptiness of it all. There was a grand Sendai tansu with a Zen scroll hanging over it, but nothing more.

  “Notice the difference in my daughter’s room!” Mrs. Mihori opened the next door, and I was over-whelmed by a jumble of possessions and the odd fact that macho Akemi slept on a princessy-looking bed with floral sheets. Her walls were covered by competition ribbons, photographs, and tattered articles, a tribute to her past.

  “She really needs to clean out the clutter,” Nana Mihori said, waving me in. “I wanted to put the tansu in here for her, across from the bed.”

  “About the tansu—there may be a slight delay.”

  “Are you polishing it? I thought it was in perfect condition.” Mrs. Mihori’s sculpted eyebrows drew together.

  “The condition was too perfect. In fact, I’ve uncovered a problem.” There, it was out.

  “Don’t doubt your judgment, Rei-san!” Nana reassured me. “Your aunt told me about the sale you made last year to a museum. Anyone who can buy museum-quality antiques can certainly buy for a simple housewife like myself.”

  “I bought while in a big hurry. When I examined the tansu at the apartment, I found a problem with the metalwork. The original lock plates had been replaced with older ones.”

  “What do you mean?” Nana Mihori sounded more perplexed than angry.

  “The chest was built during the Meiji era, not the Edo period. It’s old, but worth considerably less than what I paid for it. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I feel I cannot present it.” I bowed my head, not wanting to see her reaction.

  At last her voice came. “What will you do with it?”

  “I shall return it.” Etiquette kept me from telling her that it probably wouldn’t work out.

  “I see,” Nana said after another silence. “Certainly I am disappointed, but I defer to you. After all, I am no antiques expert. Just an enthusiast.”

  “I’m sorry I let you down. I would really like to keep looking for a piece for you. I wouldn’t expect you to take the one I’ve bought.”

  “I think we should just let the matter rest for now.” Nana turned a smooth face to me, the one I’d seen her use on guests she was meeting for the first time. It was chilling.

  “Let what rest?” a rough, low-pitched voice asked.

  Akemi Mihori had crept up behind us. She had swapped her judo-gi for a black Spandex sports bra and shorts that revealed bulging muscles in her legs and arms.

  “Akemi!” Nana Mihori seemed flustered. “I was just showing your room.”

  “So you’re the antiques buyer! Hey, aren’t you American?” Akemi said in English, grabbing my hand in a handshake like iron. I was relieved when it ended. She used the same hand to vigorously wipe her damp brow, raining a few drops of sweat on me.

  “Yes. My name is Rei Shimura,” I answered, trying to pretend her body fluids hadn’t hit me.

  “Shimura-san says there’s some problem with the tansu,” Nana Mihori said. I was no longer on a first-name basis with her.

  “Really?” Akemi was persisting in English, although Nana and I were speaking Japanese. “Miss Shimura, do you run?”

  “No. I’m not very athletic.” I had no idea where she was leading.

  “You’re a swimmer, right? Given that you smell like the sea.” Akemi laughed heartily. “Come on, I thought all Americans were sports fanatics!”

  “Sorry to disappoint. I’ve disappointed your family in a lot of ways.”

  “Don’t worry,” Nana said in her newly cold voice, and Akemi’s gaze bounced from me to her mother as if she’d finally caught on to the tension.

  “I must be going. It’s getting late,” I said.

  Despite the discomfort of our situation, I expected Nana would offer me another glass of tea. She also might have asked about my expenses from two weeks of travel. Instead, she made a vague excuse about needing to return some telephone calls and sailed off in the direction of her office. I knew she was furious.

  “Just a moment, Miss Shimura. I want to show you my jogging trail on the way out. How can you walk in those?” Akemi snorted at the sight of me struggling back into my tight pumps.

  “You wear a judo-gi to work out, don’t you? These are part of my work uniform.”

  “I’d think your fine shoes would get dirty, searching all over the country for antiques! That is, if you do it with any kind of spirit—”

  “Obviously I have no spirit!” I wished she would retreat to her gym, but she stuck her short, wide feet into Asics running shoes and followed me outside. When we were a few feet from the house, Akemi slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Catering to ladies like my mother must be hell.”

  “I don’t understand.” I’d never heard anyo
ne in Japan speak so disrespectfully about a parent.

  “Don’t believe that I wanted that stupid tansu. To tell the truth, your failure will delay my dreaded bedroom makeover.” Akemi strode down a dirt path leading away from the house and into the woods. I hurried to catch up and started to say something more about what had happened between her mother and me, but she held up a hand like a STOP sign.

  “Let’s not talk about antiques! I’m sick of them. Tell me, what do you think of this trail? Do you have them in your country?”

  Disoriented, I struggled for words. “Americans are more likely to run on smooth-surfaced jogging tracks or the street. This is different.”

  “Better, hmmm?”

  “Well, it’s certainly more natural. I bet the local people love it.”

  “What do you mean, the local people?” There was an odd expression on Akemi’s face.

  “Well, surely they enjoy running and walking here.”

  Akemi sucked in her breath. “No one runs on my trail! It was cleared for me so I could run without any bother.”

  I thought briefly about how the president of the United States had had a jogging track built at the White House that his staff members were free to use. I didn’t bring it up, but asked about her trail’s length instead.

  “It’s just two kilometers. I kept it to that length, curving through the woods so it completely avoids the temple buildings.”

  A little demon in me made me say, “I’d want to run by the temple to see what was going on and hear the monks playing their drums—”

  “That’s because you’re a foreigner and like Japan! I’d rather listen to Simply Red on my Sony Walkman. You should run with me sometime. I’d jog slowly for you,” she added as an afterthought.

  “You couldn’t possibly go slowly enough!”

  “Your legs are longer than mine. Lucky. What sports did you play in high school?” Akemi was studying me in a way that made me blush.

  “Like I said, I’m rotten at sports. I swim a little, but that’s with my head out of water. I can’t stand not breathing.”