Zen Attitude (26 page)

I squinted at my watch, which said 5:30. It was as if Hugh had some kind of inner alarm clock that always went off before mine. When I told him what I was thinking, he laughed.

“It’s happiness, Rei. I always wake up first and watch you. Have you forgotten?”

When things between us were bad, he got out of bed before I awoke. That was the other side to the coin. I got up, slipping my wrinkled rayon sundress over my head before digging in my backpack for some clean underwear. I drew back my hand when I caught a glimpse of something moving underneath the clothes.

“Hey, maybe you’ll get a chance to see a
tanuki
in daylight.” I beckoned to Hugh, who leaned over to examine the heaving laundry.

“Better keep your distance. Whatever it is could be rabid.”

“Don’t be such a dad.” I made a face at him and turned to the backpack as something brown started to emerge.

“Snake.” Hugh breathed the word so softly I could barely hear it. “Back up slowly. We’re going out the window.”

A small, flat head rose out of the backpack. I was gripped by indecision. Should I run like crazy or play dead? Hugh’s hand on my shoulder finally got me edging backward on my knees. When we reached the open window, he went out first, pulling me so that I landed on top of him. We were out.

“We’re alive,” I sighed. Then, seeing Hugh look in the window, I cried out, “Don’t!”

“He’s just emerged. A small fellow, maybe a foot and a half long. Brown with a flat, pointed head.”

“A
mamushi.
The bite is usually fatal.” I was completely shaken. “God, how long have I been sleeping with a snake?”

“Six months, if you want your aunt’s opinion.”

“That’s not funny. Come away from the window, I don’t want you getting bitten,” I begged.

“I’d rather watch his progress. Hey, he’s investigating your apple-pear things.”

“How can you look at him?” If I’d kept reaching into the backpack, I could have been killed. Somehow the snake was more menacing than the arrows that had sped at me last night—maybe because I had an innate loathing of reptiles, but no particular emotions toward sharpened steel.

“Shhh, there he goes, out a hole at the edge of the flooring. He’s under the house now,” Hugh said.

“I’m going back in.” I was hit with a fresh wave of panic.

Hugh followed me without argument, slamming all the window screens shut behind him. I curled up on the futon, watching Hugh shake out my backpack. Dirty clothes rained onto the floor along with a twisted, torn plastic shopping bag that hadn’t been there before. I looked inside and saw some flaky bits of snakeskin.

“Look at where the carrier bag came from.” Hugh held it by the edge. “Union Supermarket. The same place as the larger bag your clothes were in last night. The clothes you thought Akemi dropped off for you.”

We were out of the teahouse with my luggage in minutes. On the main road we walked for ten minutes before a taxi finally came by. At Kamakura Station, Hugh insisted on booking seats in the first-class Green Car, and I was too shell-shocked to argue about saving money. By the time we’d loaded my baggage in the overhead rack, every seat in the Green Car was filled, and the weirdly loaded silence that comes with packed trains descended.

Hugh busied himself with
The Japan Times
while I stared out the window, trying to make sense of the morning. I did not want to believe Akemi had planted the snake, just as I couldn’t believe she had left me a sitting duck in the front row at the archery tournament. Still, Akemi was the strongest, most athletic person I’d ever met. She could strangle a man or trap a snake; I had no doubt of that.

Wajin was the other possibility. He was spooky, deceitful, and far too interested in what I was doing at the temple. And even if he wasn’t a sports champion, he had more physical strength than most people thought.

The Union Supermarket bags also made me think of Miss Tanaka, who did all the Mihoris’ grocery shopping. She had looked askance at my laundry hanging on her clothesline with Akemi’s things—had she known since then that I was staying in the teahouse?

The pocket phone chirped, and the commuters around us looked up in annoyance. Hugh pulled it out of his shirt pocket.

“Don’t answer it,” I begged.

“It could be business,” he said, clicking it on. “Hugh Glendinning here.” After a few seconds he shut it off. “Nobody there, or the caller is extremely shy.”

“Of course,” I said bitterly. “That happens all the time.”

“We’ll get the number changed, then,” Hugh said, putting the phone away and handing me the newspaper.

“Not now, thanks.” I wanted to think more about Miss Tanaka.

“Feeling sick, are you? Either it’s the lack of food in your belly or . . . how early can morning sickness start?”

“Stop that!” I’d been trying to avoid thoughts of his sperm percolating inside me.

“Do you feel different?” Hugh persisted. “Some women sense it right away.”

“Sure, I feel different. Someone tried to kill me
twice
within the last twelve hours. And you’re trying to scare me again.” I broke off, noticing a salaryman in the next row who seemed to have perked up his ears. One of the problems with riding first class was that the passengers were more likely to understand English.

“Whether or not we’re going to have a child, we need to settle somewhere livable. I think we should go to the U.K., although I can work anywhere in Europe, with my passport.”

“I don’t want to go away! What are you talking about?” I was confused by the jump in the conversation.

“Tokyo’s not what it’s cracked up to be. It’s turning out to be dangerous as hell, plus I’m tired of being treated like an outcast while everyone raves about you.”

“Nobody raves about me,” I said.

“Come on! I can’t go through a meeting with my boss without him asking after you; at home it’s the concierge and those Cherry Blossom women. You fit in brilliantly, but I never will. I’m the wrong color and I can’t speak.”

“It’s not true! You’re respected, Hugh. You have a position in society, while I don’t.” Even as I spoke I was castigating myself for missing all the warning signs he’d been throwing me—things I had noticed before Angus had come but had tried to ignore. Now I understood Hugh’s irritability at being watched on the train and his retreat to Winnie’s meat-and-potato dinners. He was burned out on the country I could never leave.

In the apartment there were no signs of Angus, excepting his mess. I added my laundry to the heap resting inside in the washing machine and turned it on before entering the bathroom.

“What happened to maid service?” I asked when I saw the shower floor coated with long red hair and scum.

“Yumiko said the flat was getting to be too much and resigned. Hey, can I shower with you? Time is short, I’ve really got to be at the office within a half hour or so.”

I told him to go ahead of me. I wanted to be alone; it was disturbing that he had not realized how upset I was about his casual suggestion that we leave Japan. I banged things around in the kitchen as I made a pot of tea and toasted bread. When Hugh came in and sat down cheerfully across from me, I found I could barely eat. Either my stomach had shrunk, or I wasn’t used to bread anymore.

“Will you be here when I get home?” Hugh drained his mug of tea, setting it down with a bang.

“Probably not. Don’t worry, I’m never going to the Mihoris’ teahouse again. I’ll find one of those little rooms you can rent by the week.”

“If it’s the mess that bothers you, I’ll get a new maid, I promise!”

“It’s not the mess. I’m not going to live with you anymore.”

“What are you talking about? Last night you admitted that you loved me!”

“Not enough to leave Japan.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Hey, I’m not gone yet! Everything can be negotiated.”

“It’s not fair to make you stay in a country where you feel like an outsider. You’re young and free and have a million career choices,” I said, feeling even more glum. “I don’t want to hold you back.”

“I should have never said what I did. I should have just kept it bottled up!” Hugh sounded anguished.

“That never works.”

“I suppose you’re right.” His voice was lower, controlled. “I’d like to talk to you, but I have to go. Don’t forget your money in the sideboard, top left hand drawer.”

I looked at him sharply.

“Angus sold four of your wood-block prints, remember? I’ll see you around, then.” He was out the door so fast I could barely say good-bye.

So that was the way things were again. I stood under the shower for a long time, the first time in my life I didn’t enjoy it. Then I dried off, dressed, and telephoned Mr. Ishida’s antiques shop. The phone rang endlessly; he didn’t believe in answering machines. I decided to look at the
tansu
one last time before arranging to have it sent to Mr. Ishida’s warehouse. I walked into the study and was surprised to hear a groan. Angus peered at me from under a mountain of twisted sheets and a quilt.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to walk in on you!” I apologized, looking carefully to make sure no one else was under the covers. “Were you here all the time?”

“No, I was at Club Isn’t It, then Gas Panic, then some place you wouldn’t know called The Underground.” Angus buried himself back in the pillows. “I got in while you were showering, and I didn’t think you’d want me to stick my head in and say hallo.”

“Very true.” I squatted down next to the futon. “While you rest, would you mind if I looked at the
tansu?
”

“What do you wanna see? It’s full of my gear again.”

“I promise I won’t snoop. I’m just examining the integrity of the piece.”

“Well, you do own it. Go ahead.” Angus turned on his side, keeping watch as I pulled out each
tansu
drawer. His clothes had spilled over the sides, and one grimy sock was stuck in the narrow gap between the side wall and bottom of the
tansu.
I pulled it gently, trying not to snag the fabric, and the bottom of the
tansu
shifted.

“It’s been doing that lately,” Angus said. “Something broke off, and now the bottom comes up all the time.”

It took a minute for his words to sink in. I knocked the wooden panel that formed the base of the
tansu
and heard a hollow sound.

“It’s a false bottom. You knew all the time?” I stared at the lumpy quilt that covered Angus. When he didn’t respond, I tipped the
tansu
on its side. The false bottom slipped halfway down. I could see that the bottom had been carefully fitted with small wooden pegs that fit into hollows in the side of the cabinet. I removed the panel and was left with a disappointingly empty flat space.

“You didn’t find anything in here, did you?” I asked.

“Just a roll of some old paper,” Angus mumbled from within his swaddling.

“What did you do with it?”

“I recycled it. It was old, but the thin paper part had the right texture.”

“You threw away something old?” I still didn’t know what the object was, but I was upset enough to pull the quilt away from Angus’s face.

He rolled away from me on the futon and spoke into the pillow. “I know you don’t want me smoking in the flat, but you moved out, and Hugh didn’t seem to care.”

“Whatever. Just tell me what happened to the paper—”

“I smoked it.”

I tried to sort out his bizarre statement. “You mean you cut up the paper to make cigarettes?”

“There’s some left over. It was a very long roll of paper.”

“Please show me.”

Angus eased up from the futon, revealing himself in his briefs. I didn’t care about that kind of thing anymore. I watched him reach a long, bony arm up to the top of the bookcases, knocking off a long, heavy poster tube. I knew it well; it contained my degree from Berkeley, which I still hadn’t gotten around to framing. He popped the lid off the tube and pulled out a thick roll of paper. I could see immediately how brutally hacked off one end was, but said nothing. He handed me the scroll and I unfurled it, using Hugh’s heavy law books to weigh down each end.

“See, I told you it’s just scribbling. It looks like someone was testing out his paintbrush,” Angus muttered.

The writing in question looked like a waterfall to me; flowing cascades of script going in vertical lines across the eight-foot series of joined papers dyed in soft shades of yellow, red, and indigo, and stamped occasionally with gold chrysanthemums. Ornate papers like this were typical of the early seventeenth-century Momoyama period, and the calligrapher had probably been an aristocrat, not a monk. I looked more closely at the writing done in the famously illegible, but beautiful,
sosho
style. I could make out the characters for “river” and “mountain.” The writer had even sketched in a drawing of Mt. Fuji. Could it be a travel journal?

“What was on the section you cut off? Do you remember?” I asked Angus.

“I dunno. Now that you’ve got it all unrolled, it looks like something real. Damn, I screwed up again.” Angus sounded heartbroken.

“At least you told me the scroll existed.” I sighed. “Do you have any of the cigarettes left?”

“Mmm. I think so. Would that help? “When I nodded, he went back into the diploma tube and removed five fat cigarettes. “I smoked three already, sorry about that. I’ll unroll these for you.”

Within a minute, he had five slightly curled pieces of pale blue paper ready for my inspection. I patched them to form the last line of text. There was a tiny smudge of scarlet ink on one of the pieces, probably the edge of the artist’s seal. The rest, I guessed, had been smoked.

“Is it something you can glue together? What does it say?”

“I’ll have to do a little bit of studying. It’s too bad the scroll didn’t come in its original box. That would have had the artist’s name, a description of the contents, and the time it was drawn.” I already knew where I was going: the Tokyo National Museum Research Center. But I wasn’t carrying the scroll—it was far too valuable. I’d take some photographs of it instead.

I walked around the scroll with my Polaroid camera, snapping close-ups of everything.

Angus burst into a babble of questions. “Is it worth something?”