Zen Attitude

by Sujata Massey

  “I’m glad I didn’t give him anything more.”

  It hit me then that she hadn’t asked about the circumstances of Mr. Sakai’s death. All she cared about was the fact she’d been cheated. I supposed it would make the rest of our conversation easier.

  “I came today to find out some more about the tansu. Its history, for example.”

  She looked at the Polaroid snapshots I’d taken of the top, front, and sides of the chest and shook her head. “It looks like our piece, but I cannot be sure. I’m not the one who knows the furniture. My brother is. Ah, he’s calling now.”

  “Ocha! I’d heard a raspy voice in the distance, but finally its demand for tea was clearly audible.

  “The master.” She grimaced, making me wonder if she was trying to be ironic; after all, “master” was the polite word for “husband,” too. “Will you wait here for a few minutes? I must take my brother his midmorning tea.”

  I sat while she moved around the kitchen but was out of my seat the moment she went upstairs with her tea tray. The first thing I did was look at all the superb Edo-period wood-block prints in the room. Her father must have started collecting well before World War II, because these prints were too expensive to buy in the current market. The furniture was a mix of older and newer pieces; amid Meiji-era pieces was a tea chest that struck me as 1920s Korean, probably built to Japanese specifications during its occupation of that country.

  I ventured into the next room, which, as Miss Ideta had hinted, was crowded with more treasures. In front of the Buddhist altar I saw family portraits, including a young man in an army uniform, giving credence to my belief the father had traveled to Korea. Next to his military portrait was a pair of parental portraits as dour as the ones at Nana Mihori’s. They seemed to frown at me as I snooped around the room. Most interesting to me was an Edo-period calligraphy scroll hung elegantly alone in the tokonoma alcove; my eye wandered from its bold but unreadable parade of letters to the left edge, where a small tear had been crudely fixed with a piece of cellophane tape. If the Idetas had carelessly repaired a treasure like this, maybe they would have replaced the metalwork on the Sado Island tansu.

  Miss Ideta had said her brother Nomu was the one who knew about furniture. I treaded up the dusty staircase and followed the odor of antiseptic and sickness that seemed to curl out of a room at the end of the short hall. Through a half-open door, I saw a tall IV stand with a plastic bag dripping some kind of fluid through a cord that went into the arm of an aged man lying in bed. There was also a hulking steel machine that could easily have supplanted several big tansu chests. I could understand the Idetas’ space problem.

  “What is it?” Miss Ideta sounded annoyed.

  “The doorbell rang.” Actually, the neighbor’s had sounded, giving me a nice, semitruthful excuse.

  “Thank you. I didn’t hear it.” Miss Ideta stood up.

  “Who’s the girl? She looks like one of our money-grubbing cousins.” Mr. Ideta’s voice was as sour as his smell, and his watery eyes ran over me critically as I bowed.

  “You really are needing your dialysis treatment, neh? So disagreeable,” Miss Ideta said. “This is Shimura-san. She, ah, just came to visit.”

  “What is your illness?” I asked when Miss Ideta had gone downstairs. I probably had less than a minute with the brother before she would be back.

  “Diabetes. What kind of a nurse are you that you don’t recognize dialysis equipment?” Mr. Ideta growled.

  “I’m not a nurse. I came about the furniture.”

  “Heh?” It was as if someone had spiked him with a cattle prod. “Did you come to take more of my treasures away, like that bastard Sakai?”

  “I thought you willingly sold to him.”

  “The only thing I agreed to were appraisals. But living upstairs like this, in bed, do you think I know what’s missing downstairs? My hibachi, my tansu . . . all could be gone, for what that wretch of a woman tells me.”

  Mr. Ideta’s age and illness were leading him into paranoia. I reassured him, “From what your sister told me, the two of you agreed to sell a limited number of possessions. There are many things still downstairs.”

  “My scroll—is it still safe?”

  “The one somebody repaired with tape? That actually was not a good idea—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” He pounded so hard on the little tray by his bed that his tea spilled. “I tell you, it’s my scroll and it’s perfect!”

  “I don’t know about that.” I rescued the cup and sat down in his sister’s chair. “When you make alterations to old things, they usually lose value. In fact, I wanted to ask you if you remember alterations being made to the metalwork of your Sado Island tansu.”

  “There was no need for repairs. My father kept those pieces in excellent condition and passed them on to me. They’re good enough to be placed in the Tokyo National Museum, which is where I may leave them, although my sister will be upset—”

  “What upsets me? Older brother, you’re getting too excited.” Miss Ideta stood in the doorway. I had been so caught up in Nomu Ideta’s stormy recital that I hadn’t heard her light footsteps.

  “We were talking about how nice your family collection is,” I improvised. “It’s a shame your brother is reluctant to have further appraisals.”

  “I could have told you that,” Miss Ideta said, coolly contradicting what she’d told me ten minutes earlier.

  I had broken the rules and was being punished. What could I say?

  “No one was at the door, but the nurse is coming any minute. I’m afraid I must get things in order.” And with that, Miss Ideta ordered me out.

  Chapter 9

  I still had a workout date with Akemi Mihori. I could have canceled, but she would have thought me a coward. Given all that I’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, it suddenly seemed very important to follow through on something I’d promised, to see something turn out right.

  I had expected Angus Glendinning to be out of the apartment, but he was on the living room sofa when I arrived home to change clothes for running. He had decided that he wanted to come with me. Thinking of Hugh, I faked enthusiasm, figuring that while I was with Akemi, he could participate in the foreigners’ Zen orientation at the temple.

  During the hour-long ride to Kamakura, I tried to read a Banana Yoshimoto novel about sexual obsession, while Angus hummed a song by Bush called “Everything Zen” in honor of the occasion. When I asked him to desist, he began pestering me with questions.

  “How is Zen different from the original Buddhism? Don’t they all worship the same guy?”

  “Well, the various sects of Buddhism support the idea that the world and self are just illusions.” I tried to remember what I’d studied in my Asian religions class in college. “All Buddhists try to reach enlightenment by ridding themselves of selfish desires. But Zen worshipers work really hard at it, sitting in the lotus position for hours, moving past pain into something else. I’ve also heard that they think abandoning rational thought can lead to a heightened stage of inner consciousness.”

  “Oh, like a Zen attitude. Easy come, easy go. That’s what I have!”

  I shook my head. “Could you sit perfectly motionless in a full lotus position all day, enduring a priest’s shouting and hitting you with the discipline stick? Are you humble enough?”

  Angus shook his head. “Of course not! I can’t believe this judo woman lives that way. Hugh said her family have plenty of money.”

  “They are wealthy. Consider all the cash donations coming in, and not having to pay taxes. Only one member of each generation actually has to work at the temple. The other Mihoris can dabble in sports, cultural arts, community voluntarism.” Like Nana Mihori, saving land for the Kamakura Green and Pristine Society.

  “Not bad, but hardly Zen!” Angus snorted.

  When the train trip ended, we walked an uncomfortable fifteen minutes to Horin-ji. As we passed under the towering temple gate, I pointed Angus toward the m
agnificent main hall fronted by hundreds of pigeons and camera-clicking tourists.

  “Remember to remove your sandals at the main hall’s steps. It will probably be a lot like what you experienced in India. If you get confused, ask the other foreigners for help.” I waved my hand at a European tour group.

  “But they’re German!” Angus protested.

  I walked off, reminding myself that Hugh had once irritated me, and I’d grown to adore him. But Angus was not the same. He dismissed people, foods, anything that was different from what he had known. He was into the self, but it had nothing to do with the Buddhist ideal.

  I located Akemi, who was twisted into a pretzel-style stretch, on a rubber mat outside her dojo. She looked at me sideways and said, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  I sighed and said, “I should warn you, I’ve only run once so far. It didn’t go very well, and I got shin-splints.”

  “You did it, though?” Akemi reversed position. “That’s really great. Get down on the ground. Ten minutes’ stretching before we go.”

  The trail began straight and wide: perfect, Akemi said, for the sprinting practice I’d want to begin a few months into training. After five hundred yards, the trail narrowed and began to wind through cypress and cedar trees. In Horin-ji’s dark brown and green woodland you could almost forget the heat, or maybe it really was cooler away from the steel and cement of Tokyo.

  When we started, I expected Akemi to bound on ahead. Instead she jogged backward at my speed for a few minutes, then told me to run more slowly.

  “You aren’t going at a consistent speed. Too much accelerating and decelerating. If you were driving a car, the police would pull you over.” She switched so she was running sideways.

  I had been thinking about stopping for a walking break, but now I obediently slowed and matched Akemi’s slow, even pace. After a few minutes, my breathing had improved to the point that I could talk.

  “Are you sure this is really running?”

  “You’re too competitive.” Akemi chuckled.

  “And you aren’t?” I shot back.

  “Competing against yourself is the issue. If you worry too much about whether you measure up, and set yourself running at a pace that’s not natural for you, you’ll never give yourself the confidence you need.”

  “My problem is overconfidence,” I gasped as we ran along. “I was too sure about the tansu. I didn’t make the time to examine it properly.”

  “I read in the newspaper that the man working at Hita Fine Arts died. It’s strange how things turned out.”

  “I didn’t want him to die. I just wanted my money back. He was dishonest, pocketing 1.3 million on a consignment—”

  “How do you know that? It wasn’t in the paper.”

  “I met the family who sold the chest to him.” Over the course of our conversation, my breath was smoothing out.

  “Really? They must be angry!”

  “Yes, but there’s nothing we can do. I went back to Hita Fine Arts and they refused to be held responsible for Sakai’s sales.” Feeling depressed, I changed the topic. “Are we safe from your mother? Doesn’t she walk here sometimes?”

  “I already told you my mother’s gone out today, but you’ll never need to worry even if you want to practice here alone. My mother once used the teahouse along this way, but after she built our new house with a tearoom inside, she stopped coming.”

  “This teahouse looks really old,” I said, glad for an excuse to slow down as we came upon a building little bigger than a child’s playhouse. A few tiles were hanging haphazardly off the roof, and the sliding doors opening the house to the woods were cracked, but there was a charming, round window that looked ideal for moon viewing.

  “Watch your pace, and picture your success! On the last lap, you can walk and do your stretching here,” Akemi ordered.

  We circled the track again before I was permitted to walk. Akemi accelerated, legs flashing faster and faster until she disappeared in a blur. I had been walking only a few minutes when she passed me again.

  All the sliding doors were swollen by humidity, so I had to shove hard to enter the small, square room floored in tatami. True to Zen style, the teahouse was decorated only with a chest for tea ceremony bowls. A musty smell told me dampness and insects had probably gotten inside the tatami and the few zabuton, cushions for sitting, stacked in the corner.

  “You’re not stretching!” Akemi yelled as she passed again, so I went outside and did some hurdler’s stretches. What I really wanted was water. A small stream trickled near by, but I didn’t trust its cleanliness. I was preparing to head back to the water fountain near the temple when Akemi came around one final time holding two plastic bottles.

  “You read my mind,” I told her, sucking down the contents of the bottle she handed me.

  “Water is very important. I had these chilling in the stream behind the house.” Akemi balanced her foot against the teahouse wall and stretched. Her breathing dropped to normal within a minute. I was jealous, because I was as drenched in sweat and as exhausted as during my first run at Yoyogi Park. Still, I calculated that I’d run a mile without stopping. Akemi had shown me I had the strength.

  “Has my mother called you?” Akemi finished her bottle and went back to stretching. “She’s forgiven you, I think.”

  “How did that happen?” I was stunned.

  “I pointed out how unfair she’d been. It was silly of her not to take what you’d bought for her. It was going into my room, and I don’t care at all about its age.”

  I voiced something I’d been wondering about. “If your room does get redecorated with Japanese antiques, what will happen to your medals, all the things that are a part of you?”

  “She wants me to put them in storage. It’s silly to keep them around, as I haven’t won a match in ten years.”

  “But you’re always training in the dojo.”

  “It’s just a hobby. I do a few exhibitions.” She shrugged.

  “Why don’t you work at the temple? You’re the only child, so I assume you’ll inherit.”

  Akemi shook her head. “In Buddhism, like your Catholicism, women can’t become priests. My cousin Kazuhito gets the temple. I’m sure my parents built me the dojo to ease their guilt.”

  “I’m an only child, too. Growing up, I felt I had everything I could possibly want, except the most important—having someone to play with.” I thought about how I’d been taken everywhere by my parents, who taught me all about restaurant and museum manners but nothing about playground sports. Having spent time with Angus, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want a brother, but I would have loved an older sister who could have shown me how to climb across the jungle gym. Someone like Akemi.

  “There’s nothing worse than having someone forced into your life. Kazuhito came to live with us when we were both twelve. Suddenly he was getting the best pieces of fish at dinner, fantastic gifts, the best position near my father in the temple.”

  “How are things these days?”

  “We coexist,” Akemi said tightly.

  I listened to a siren ringing in the distance and wondered what would happen to her after her father died. Would she be forced to abandon the spacious house for a small apartment? What inheritance could she carry with her?

  “Does Kazuhito work at the temple now?” I asked.

  “He’s the vice abbot, which means he oversees the temple’s business, our collection of antiquities, and the cultural programs like foreigners’ outreach. I don’t know why, given that he hardly speaks a word of English—”

  “You could do that,” I said. “Your English is excellent!”

  “Like I said, my sex precludes me from ever being a priest. I could only marry one, but turning into someone like my mother would be like death.”

  Akemi was getting wound up, and I wanted to keep talking. Too bad it was time for me to leave. I sighed and said, “I have to go to the main hall to pick up Hugh’s beloved brother. The foreigners’ orient
ation must be over by now.”

  “Don’t you want to shower first?” Akemi looked at me with concern.

  “No! I didn’t bring towels or a change of clothing.” I’d been in communal showers and baths before, but the prospect of being naked with Akemi made me nervous. She had already commented on my legs; I didn’t want to hear more.

  “You must not enter a temple dirty. It’s against Buddhist etiquette,” she said.

  “I’ll stand outside. I’m sure Angus will be waiting.”

  “Whatever you want.” She wrinkled her nose, making her opinion clear.

  “On Saturday I’m having my party. You’re still coming, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Maybe. It depends on my schedule.”

  Her schedule seemed pretty freewheeling to me, but I didn’t press her. After all, I’d chickened out about the shower.

  Angus was standing on the wooden hallway that ran around the exterior of the main hall, deep in conversation with a Japanese man wearing long indigo robes. The priest looked ageless, given his smooth, shaved head and lively eyes. To my horror, he noticed me and beckoned.

  “Shimura-san, please come up! This young man explained you have been exercising my daughter!”

  The priest speaking good English was undoubtedly Akemi’s father, the abbot and owner of the temple itself. If he told his wife I was on the grounds, she’d be furious.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you like this,” I said, unlacing my running shoes and hoping my socks wouldn’t leave damp marks on the smooth cedar steps leading up to the temple.

  “We had an emergency!” Angus was looking more excited than I’d ever seen him. “Our priest conked out during the meditation.”

  “He is talking about my nephew. Angus-san saved his life,” Abbot Mihori said.

  “Yeah, it was utter madness,” Angus rattled on. “We were all sitting cross-legged and staring into our souls or something. It had gotten pretty quiet and I guess all the others were in a trance, because when the priest fell over, I was the only one who noticed. At first I wondered if it was part of, you know, the temple routine.”