Zen Attitude

by Sujata Massey

  “If Mohsen Zavar was also at your party and now has disappeared, don’t you consider him a likelier suspect than two women from one of Japan’s finest families?”

  Lieutenant Hata peacefully sipped his coffee, and I longed to knock the can from his hand. How could he be so dense? He’d said he needed the case solved fast. Here I was handing him the tool, and he wouldn’t take it.

  “I appreciate the chance to talk with you. All I ask is that you write one of your memos about what I’ve said, in case I also vanish,” I said acidly.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, tossing the empty can in the small recycling hole built into the machine. “I will definitely check for your Iranian friend, but I’m afraid that what I learn will not please you. Lately foreign men with expired visas are disappearing into the countryside, where they can find work and not risk detection. Perhaps that is what your friend did.”

  “If he’s in the country somewhere, I’d be very relieved. All I want is to know that he’s alive.”

  “Alive and deported to Iran? How would you feel about that circumstance, if I find him?”

  I didn’t answer.

  In a little over an hour I was scheduled to start working in Kamakura, so I raced straight to the train station before realizing I had forgotten the whole point of coming to Tokyo, my meeting with Jun Kuroi. I couldn’t call him, not with the restrictions he’d set on my telephoning. Damn it. I’d have to wait for him to get in touch with me.

  I arrived at Maeda Antiques to find my employer hanging out the carp banner in the hot summer breeze. She wasn’t angry that I was five minutes late, just offered me a sample from the plate of sweets she’d put together for the day’s customers. She’d taken a new, extremely optimistic attitude.

  Mrs. Kita arrived an hour later, and after I helped her select an exquisite early-twentieth-century scroll at 10 percent off retail for her, and a 30 percent commission for me. We settled down to enjoy tea and mochi cakes.

  “What a nice place for you to work! And I cannot believe the value you offered me. I’ll tell all my friends. Don’t you think Mrs. Mihori would be interested?”

  “Mmm. How well do you know her?” I asked. Since Lieutenant Hata was loath to pursue things, I would do so on my own.

  “I’ve heard some stories through our women’s club. What are you curious about?” Mrs. Kita smiled.

  “I was wondering where she came from. She has such innate style that I was thinking her own family background must have been high-class.”

  “Yes, she was an Ideta. The Idetas are an old samurai family. Having been in service to so many generations of landholders, the family accumulated many gifts. When we had a tour of the temple residence a few years ago, someone asked Mrs. Mihori which things she had brought to the marriage. She had brought nothing more than a bridal tansu, which is typical for everyone. I was surprised,” Mrs. Kita added.

  “A bridal tansu! Did you see it?” Had the Sado Island tansu once been here—and then been taken away?

  “Yes, it was an ornate Sendai piece decorated with butterfly metalwork.”

  Recalling the cranes and turtles on the Sado Island piece, my hopes for an easy solution were dashed. “Oh. I wonder where all the Idetas’ other pieces are.”

  “In the family home in Denen-Chofu. The house and everything in it was inherited by Nana’s elder brother.”

  That was the way real estate worked, too. My male cousin would never leave his mother and father’s house because it was his to inherit, but my female cousin would have to find shelter through marriage.

  “So, Mrs. Mihori’s brother gets everything, I suppose. Is he much older than her?” I was purposely talking as if I didn’t know Nomu Ideta had died.

  “About twenty years, I think. He passed away recently, so I sent Mrs. Mihori a condolence card that she hasn’t yet acknowledged. She’s left with her sister, Haru, who took care of the brother all these years. She never married.”

  “Come to think of it, I saw the obituary in the newspaper,” I admitted. “But I’m sure Mrs. Mihori’s name wasn’t listed.”

  “After marriage, a woman’s name is removed from her father’s family roster and added to her husband’s records,” Mrs. Kita said. “Probably the reporter didn’t push any farther.”

  Not like Mrs. Kita, a dedicated gossip. I put on a bright smile and said, “So, I bet the sisters can finally inherit!”

  “Not true.” Mrs. Kita held up a manicured hand to still me. “Remember, the wealth must pass to a male heir. I think there’s a distant nephew.”

  But Kazuhito, the vice abbot who was Nana’s relative, had already been adopted into the Mihori clan. He didn’t need more money.

  “If the nephew is the person I’m thinking of, he already has quite an inheritance. It doesn’t seem fair that he should get Nomu Ideta’s house and antiques, does it?”

  “He’s the man. I would think you would understand how things work, given your studies of Japanese history.”

  What I’d actually studied was distant from social history: Japanese china, textiles, and paper—things that could be rescued and conserved, unlike the lives of the people around me.

  That evening at Horin-ji I stood in the cover of cypress trees and watched evening worship. Two straight lines of monks proceeded into the main temple, eyes cast down and hands clasped piously. Akemi’s father led the procession. I looked for Wajin but didn’t see him.

  The temple doors were fully open to the evening sky, so I was able to watch the monks settle onto their hard cushions and begin their zazen meditation. In my shady corner under the trees, I also sat cross-legged; the position made me involuntarily straighten my back. A week of running had left my legs sore, but I was starting to like the way that felt.

  I was waiting for Kazuhito. After my conversation with Mrs. Kita, I had tried to telephone Angus for a detailed physical description of Akemi’s priest-cousin. But Hugh had answered the phone, so I hung up without speaking. I was aware that this was a rotten thing to do, especially since I’d been averaging about three calls a day on the pocket phone from a phantom caller who would breathe softly, then hang up. But I wasn’t prepared to argue with Hugh.

  I turned my thoughts back to the elusive Kazuhito. I could also have asked Akemi what he looked like. But she had behaved strangely earlier in the evening when we had run together, slipping on headphones so she could run listening to music instead. She was angry about something, maybe my desire to leave.

  Tonight’s meditation was brief. The monks sat for only half an hour before a priest hit a gong. Then the men flowed into the prostrations that I had fumbled the morning before, and marched in their two lines into another section of the temple complex. I figured they were going to eat.

  How long would I wait for Kazuhito, and what would it bring me? In a way, I just wanted the opportunity to look at him, look into his eyes and see what was there. Whether he could have murdered, or whether he was likely to be the next person killed. He’d had a devastating diabetes attack recently. Could that have been triggered by the murderer?

  A flicker of movement in the green trees caught my eye. Two slender figures emerged from the direction of the Mihoris’ house: Akemi, whom I’d just been worrying about, and her mother, Nana. As they walked slowly in my direction I moved deeper into the underbrush.

  “Taihen komatta-wa.”

  Everything’s ruined. I caught the tail end of Nana Mihori’s words to Akemi; she spoke with a sharpness I hadn’t heard before.

  “It’s not over. Let’s wait a little longer, neh?” Akemi consoled her.

  “You said I could trust her. I believed you.” Nana stopped. She was close enough for me to reach out and touch the dark purple of her kimono patterned with a spray of hydrangea blooms. All I could see of Akemi were her small, broad feet in their expensive sneakers and her smooth, muscular legs.

  “She’s been full of surprises, hasn’t she?” Akemi said dryly, and I felt myself grow damp with sweat. They were talking about me.


  “We have to take care of her.” Nana sat down on a bamboo bench, causing a few pigeons to rise up and wing their way toward my bush. As they settled into the green branches, I prayed no one would turn around and see my face.

  “The festival first. That’s our priority,” Akemi said.

  “Yes, thank you for helping with things. I’m sorry I had to go away when you needed me,” Nana said.

  “It was nothing,” Akemi said.

  “He wants to speak to me tonight. What should I say?”

  “Just smile and play dumb, like you have over all these years.” Through the leaves, I could see Akemi flex each leg, as if she couldn’t bear to waste a moment not exercising.

  “Akemi—” There was finally a note of warning in the parent’s voice.

  “Just a joke, neh? Come on, the mosquitoes are eating me.”

  To my surprise, they mounted the steps of the temple. They must be going to dinner with the monks and Abbot Mihori.

  When I was sure they were really gone, I unhitched myself from my cramped position and, staying under the cover of the bushes, crept out of the temple garden. On autopilot, I made my way into the woods and my no-longer-secret teahouse.

  Nana hadn’t used my name in the conversation, but she obviously knew I was staying there. And when she reminded her daughter to take care of things, I had a distinct feeling it meant something different than bringing me food.

  The festival would come first—the Tanabata festival, which put a brilliant face over everything in town. Just that afternoon Akemi had asked me to participate. Following our silent, unhappy run together, she’d taken me to the temple’s storehouse, packed with traditional summer costumes and masks. I would wear a fox mask and a summery red flowered yukata. Akemi’s yukata was a girlish pink and yellow, completely incongruous with the bear’s face she planned to wear. We would ride through Kamakura with other celebrities in a wheeled rikisha chariot that would be propelled by a running, costumed man—all the town’s most attractive young hunks would be working, Akemi had assured me.

  A last hurrah, and then what? The possibilities were endlessly horrible. I remembered how Akemi had sparred with her male partner, waiting for the first sign of inattention and then smashing him into the mat. She was patient and ruthless.

  I could tell Lieutenant Hata about this conversation I’d overheard, but the snatches of dialogue added up to nothing. Nana had said she was upset and couldn’t trust someone. Akemi told her mother to concentrate on the festival, and they’d take care of the problem.

  I would go through the festival, watching out for myself. It was all I could do.

  Chapter 20

  For a change, Yoko Maeda’s shop was bustling when I arrived at noon on the day of the Tanabata festival. Tourists were caressing hand-embroidered obi and exclaiming over the vintage bamboo star and flower decorations we had hung from the ceiling.

  “It’s a school holiday, so my granddaughter’s here for the day. We can all work together,” Yoko said. A seven-year-old girl peeped shyly at me, then returned to playing with her tamagotchi, an egg-shaped plastic toy with a window showing an anodyne display of a chicken and a statement of its needs at the moment. The electronic pet had to be “fed” or “walked” every few hours; if the correct codes weren’t punched in, the computer within would declare the chicken dead. Tamagotchi were wildly popular with children but seemed boring to me, especially in comparison with Maeda Antiques’ stock of antique dolls. I wanted to coax Yoko’s granddaughter into the doll section, but the afternoon was so busy I could barely keep the kimono straight and answer all the foreign tourists’ questions. Their sudden mass appearance mystified me until someone told me that because of the day’s festival, the Green and Pristine Society had paid for a fleet of trolley-style buses to transport tourists to temples and shops. If I’d known about the trolley, I could have taken it myself instead of walking two miles in the sun.

  The crowd slacked off around four o’clock, when the festival began. Mrs. Maeda shooed me off, and I hopped the last trolley on her street to go back to the temple. I disembarked with everyone at the main gate, but slipped off into the woods so I could enter without paying admission.

  Akemi had left a note inside the teahouse: “I’ve got your costume. Come to the dojo for your shower.” It was easy enough for her to offer, but I had to get into the family compound unnoticed. I stuck my toiletries in my backpack, hoping she’d have a fresh towel to lend me, and set off for the dojo.

  “Are you going to celebrate Tanabata?” Wajin’s voice startled me as I reached the clearing between the forest and the Mihoris’ private residence. He was lounging on a boulder in the elaborate rock garden. “What do you think of my costume?” He stood up, showing off a spectacular turquoise robe.

  “Pretty fancy,” I whispered. “Please don’t talk so loudly. The Mihori parents don’t know I’m here.”

  “What are you going to wear, one of Akemi’s martial arts uniforms?”

  “No, I’m going traditional. But stay away from me, okay? I don’t need the attention.”

  “You should wear a mask.” He was looking at me in a familiar, mischievous way. “It’s quite common for revelers to hide behind animal faces.”

  “I know that,” I interrupted him. “I’m going as a fox.”

  “The smartest animal of all!”

  “I really have to go,” I said, and bolted toward the dojo, thinking Wajin should get out of public view. After all, what right did a monk have to hang around the abbot’s residence? He was not dressed to rake the garden or do any weeding.

  “It’s about time!” Akemi chided when I found her fussing with her pretty yukata. “We have to be at the rikisha stand in twenty minutes. Get in the shower!”

  Given my life without a bathroom, the last thing I wanted was to hurry through a lovely hot shower. I was still drying myself when Akemi threw the red yukata on me and began tying the obi around my waist.

  “Let me find some underwear,” I protested.

  “Forget it! Women in the olden days wore no underwear. Besides, no one can tell.” Akemi slipped the bear mask over her head.

  It was true that the light cotton robe covered me from shoulder to ankle, but the thought of being unclothed was disturbing. What if there were some kind of accident and I tumbled from the float? I didn’t like the idea of twenty thousand tourists watching. I scrounged around in my backpack to find the slightly damp underpants I’d washed the day before in the stream in the woods.

  “This is what you need to worry about!” Akemi held up a pair of traditional, three-inch-high geta sandals made from smoothly polished wood. I stepped up onto them; it would be a struggle to keep my balance.

  “I have to go all the way to the temple exit in these sandals? I don’t know if I can make it.”

  “I’m not asking you to run, just to walk.” Akemi slipped the fox mask over my head, yanking the elastic cord tightly around the back of my damp head. I’d have an odd-looking bump when my hair dried. “There! You’re perfect.”

  “Tell me again why I have to do this. I thought the idea was for me to fade into the forest.”

  “You’ve stayed here for days and won’t do me one favor?” Akemi regarded me from behind her bear mask, a caricature of goodwill.

  “Something’s going on below the surface, isn’t it? You and your mother—” I needed to bring up what I’d overheard in the garden.

  Akemi stopped me. “We can’t talk about that now. All I ask is that you sit beside me keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open.”

  I followed my new enemy across the temple grounds, the high platform sandals altering my walk to a rather mincing gait. Having always craved height, I liked being three inches taller, but I knew I’d have rotten blisters by the evening’s end.

  We were assigned to the sixth rikisha in a parade of maybe thirty, all beautifully decorated with paper streamers, flowers, and stars. As I settled onto a cushioned seat next to Akemi on the small, open truck
, no one questioned my presence. Our rikisha driver was Akemi’s sparring partner. I was surprised to see him bantering good-naturedly with the woman who had thrown him over her hip the week before. Tonight he was drinking sake, and he passed Akemi a flask.

  “So, how much sake does it take for a man to lose his virility?” Akemi teased. Some masked ladies sitting in the rikisha around us laughed. Listening to their low voices and catching a glimpse of an extremely hairy leg, I began to doubt the princesses were all female.

  As we rolled south into Kamakura’s main district, the crowds lining the street grew. I marveled at how the cherry-tree-lined walkway we were riding up had been hung with colorful streamers and origami decorations. I waved a bamboo pole decorated with washi paper ornaments, feeling like a member of a very bizarre royal family. Through my mask’s small eyeholes, I scanned the crowd, thousands of Japanese dressed in colorful yukata similar to the one I was wearing. Near the Asahi beer stall I saw a couple of reddish blond heads standing out against the dark-haired sea. I squinted hard to focus and recognized the Glendinning brothers. I remembered how Angus had pressed Hugh to bring him to the festival. He must have won.

  My initial response was to dive down in the rikisha, but I figured that would be too noticeable. Instead, I stopped waving my wand and hunched over, looking at my sandals.

  “You look weird.” Akemi’s whisper was sharp.

  “It’s them. Hugh and Angus! By Asahi beer,” I muttered in English.

  “Don’t talk about buying beer! This rikisha is advertising the best sake in Kamakura!” one of the masculine princesses bellowed.

  “Yeah, give my uptight friend a drink!” Akemi joked, adding, “No one can recognize you with the mask, silly.”

  She was right. In addition, Hugh had no idea I was living in Kamakura, or that I would be foolish enough to parade around on a rikisha. I raised my head again and found that neither he nor Angus was even looking at the parade. They were watching a woman approaching them: Winnie Clancy, wearing a very tasteful, long-skirted linen dress that I could never have carried off. She looked very much at home as she slipped her arm into Hugh’s.