Zen Attitude (31 page)

“In the end, you saved my life,” I said. “But Jun Kuroi is lost in the tunnels, and Kazuhito is at your house!”

“Not anymore. My assistant radioed that both are in custody,” Lieutenant Hata said.

“How did you know I was in Kamakura?” Although I wished Lieutenant Hata had made it up to the mountain earlier, I was grateful for his presence.

“You may recall that I mentioned there were certain signs present at the death scenes of Nao Sakai and Nomu Ideta. What those police officers found was dirt with an extremely high alkaline content. I noticed the same dirt in your apartment as well. When you mentioned Horin-ji to me, I started thinking about their famous hydrangeas.”

“Hydrangeas need super-alkaline soil,” Akemi said. “I found this guy’s assistant poking around on my private trail taking soil samples. I was about to give him hell, but then he said he was working in cooperation with the Kamakura police to find you.”

“How did anyone know that?” I asked Lieutenant Hata.

“You abandoned luggage in a coin locker at the Tokyo National Museum. When your pocket phone inside began ringing, a security guard opened the locker and contacted us. We called the Glendinning apartment, and Angus-san told us about the scroll.”

I’d thought Angus hated police. It wasn’t so bad to have a little brother, especially if he was going to look after me. Little brother-in-law? Not quite, I thought as the ambulance arrived, screeching like a song by Nine Inch Nails.

My knee was down but not completely out. During my week in the orthopedics ward at St. Luke’s International Hospital, the doctor in charge of my case had suggested arthroscopic surgery. The question was whether the operation should be done by a St. Luke’s surgeon or by a specialist Hugh wanted to fly in from London. I surprised everyone by making my own decision.

“I’m having it done in California at my father’s hospital. You can’t beat American medicine.”

“But you said you never wanted to leave Japan! And how in hell are you going to manage a plane seat? You can’t bend your knee.” Hugh, who was spending his lunch hour with me, stroked the thigh just above my cast. He still had his touch, and I still had my reactions to it.

“You may remember that my parents gave me a first-class ticket to San Francisco that I’ve never used. I understand there’s plenty of leg room. That’s what you always tell me about your first-class travels.”

“When would you go?”

“Sometime next week. I’ll probably stay for a month so they can make sure it’s healing correctly.”

Hugh was silent for a while before asking, “Are you going to California because of the baby?”

It took me a few seconds to understand what baby he was talking about: the mythical creature he had conceived when I’d been motion-sick on our train ride out of Kamakura. I smiled reassuringly. “You don’t have to worry. My period’s starting tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? How do you know?” Hugh sounded irritated.

“Cramps.”

He sighed. “I suppose I should feel relieved. But in a way I’m sorry to have lost this final connection with you.”

“What do you mean, final connection? You’re the one who wants to leave Japan.”

“You’re misquoting me. What I hate is being a foreigner. I thought about it some more, and I realize I will be just as foreign in most of Europe.”

“So you want to go to Scotland?”

“Yes. I need to get back to my roots. I treated Angus with kid gloves because I hadn’t seen him in years. I thought that if I came down hard, he’d run off and I wouldn’t see him again. To be honest, I’m the one who’s blown off the family. I’ve been abroad so long that I’ve never seen my nieces and nephews, and now I know I really want children. For the time being, I can practice being an uncle.”

“You’ll meet someone over there. You’ll get married and have exactly what you want,” I said, my spirits sinking.

“But I want to marry only you,” he said.

I’d never expected a proposal at a time when I was lying in a hospital suffering from a damaged knee and premenstrual cramping. Those irritations should have faded as I looked into Hugh’s eyes. They didn’t.

“I can’t get married,” I said.

“You mean you won’t?”

I spoke slowly, trying to organize my complicated set of emotions. “I love you—I’ve known that for a few months now—but I’m not ready to be your wife. I need to make a decent year’s salary, my
own
salary, before I can think about a merger.”

Hugh caught my hand. “I could wait a year. Or even two.”

“You would?”

“I keep forgetting how young you are. You’ve got a lot to think about.” He traced the stitches on my left hand. “I’m still going to Scotland, but I’ll order one of those freephone numbers so you can call without charge.”

“An 800 number?”

“That’s right. You can ring me daily on the status of your feelings.”

I laughed so much that I forgot all about my knee, forgot everything except the feeling of his arms around me and the knowledge that although my life wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t so terrible, either.

A few days before I was scheduled to fly back to California, Nana Mihori came to St. Luke’s for a visit, wearing not her typical
kimono
but a mustard-colored silk tunic and slim trousers. When I told her that I liked the pantsuit, she promptly denigrated it, as Japanese etiquette required.

“The only advantage to slacks, I believe, is the comfort and convenience. These days, I travel so much by train. Back and forth from the National Police Agency and the Tokyo National Museum, lunching with my tea colleagues in between. It is a whirlwind schedule.”

“Please sit down,” I urged her, wondering about her agenda.

“Rei-san, I am very grateful to you.”

I felt my face getting hot. “I didn’t do what you wanted. If I had, maybe none of this would have happened.”

“Everything—the actions of my former adopted son and his brother—happened because Akemi and I decided to save the Mitsuhiro scroll for ourselves. I knew in my heart that taking the scroll from the archives was wrong, but I was so worried about how we would live after Kazuhito took over. I did not want to be like my sister, lingering in a home where she was not wanted.”

“We all want to be independent,” I said. “I’ve been wondering about something. How did you know the Mitsuhiro scroll was hidden in the
tansu?
”

“It’s a long story. I first stored the scroll in the general antiques collection at home, but unfortunately Nomu noticed it and hid it for himself. When Haru took Nomu to the hospital for one of his health emergencies, Akemi and I searched the house. We found the scroll among my brother’s business papers. I decided to move it to the
tansu
, which had a false bottom that I remembered from childhood games. We thought it would be wise not to tell Haru about the scroll’s new hiding place. She gave us such a bad surprise this summer by consigning the
tansu
to Hita Fine Arts! Now we had to retrieve the scroll along with the
tansu.
I asked you to do the job for me so my brother and sister would not suspect my strange behavior.”

“How did Kazuhito and Tun find out?”

“I believe Kazuhito must have overheard a conversation about the
tansu
that Akemi and I had in the temple cemetery. We thought we were safe talking there, but apparently were not.”

“Your temple grounds are safe again,” I said.

“Yes.” She looked sad, though. “Soon Nomu’s ashes will be buried in our cemetery. We have also encouraged Mrs. Sakai to bring her late husband’s ashes to Horin-ji. I am not sure if she will want that, but I felt the need to offer something, given how innocently he fell into our terrible family drama.”

“She might accept,” I said. Because of Japan’s limited land, the costs of a temple burial were stratospheric; to get free internment at a temple such as Horin-ji would be a blessing. And it wasn’t Nana Mihori who had done Mr. Sakai wrong—it was Kazuhito, who was in the process of being removed from the Mihori family register. It would be as if the man currently locked up in a prison for hardened criminals had never existed.

“I have to think what I should do for you.” Nana’s eyes rested on me. “I understand that you have offered to return the Mitsuhiro scroll to Horin-ji. That was extremely generous.”

After some serious discussion with Lieutenant Hata, it had become evident that I had no legal claim on the scroll, since it had been placed in the
tansu
by accident.
Mislaid
was the word Hata used instead of
stolen
, explaining that it was impossible to define Akemi’s action as theft since she was for all intents and purposes one of the scroll’s caretakers. I could have pressed the issue in court, but I had no interest in that. Some things were more important than money.

“The best thing, I think, would be to fulfill my promise to you and buy the Sado Island
tansu
,” Nana said, returning my thoughts to the present.

“That doesn’t make sense, now that you have the scroll again. You got what you wanted.”

“Actually, I plan to donate the
tansu
to Yoko Maeda, who runs the antiques shop where you recently worked. She may have mentioned that I once gave her some . . . trouble. I would like to present her with the
tansu
to correct my past selfishness. I understand you won’t work there again, and she is going to miss your help.”

“You’re very influential.” I looked closely at Nana. “Do you think the Kamakura Green and Pristine Society could improve the parking situation near her shop?”

Of course. I’ve already sent the city council a letter about it.” She paused. “I must repeat how grateful I am to you for saving my family. I know that Akemi has not come to see you because she is embarrassed. She thinks you will reject her because you know the truth about how she took the scroll.”

“She’s being ridiculous. Tell her that after my knee is fixed, I want to start training.”

“More running?”

“Definitely, and maybe even judo. The way my life’s been going, it’s time I learned to protect myself.”

Nana Mihori smiled and bid me farewell, leaving behind a tin box filled with her delicious barley tea and, when I looked underneath it, a long white envelope. So she really intended to buy the
tansu.
I slid out a thick wad of money and started counting. She had left five million yen and a note.

“What’s with all that payola? Are you running some black-market scam?” Angus Glendinning sauntered in with his arms full of bags from the Old Tehran coffee shop.
Falafel
, I thought, sniffing happily.

“It’s a genuine payment,” I told Angus. “I earned every bit with my blood, sweat, and tears.”

“Figures you’d mention an old band,” he scoffed, tossing a cassette in my lap. “I made this for you. It’s cutting-edge British, which actually means it has a bit of that eighties sound you like.”

“What band is this? I can’t read your writing,” I said, squinting at the scrawled label.

“They’re called Massive Attack. You’ll love them,” Angus promised, taking the tape out of my hands and slipping it into the boom box he’d brought me on his last visit.

By the time the first song was over, Angus had danced nonstop through the room, and I had laughed so hard I’d spilled my falafel sandwich over the blankets.

“
Gaijin
,” the charge nurse sighed to her colleague when they came into the room and saw the mess.

We just grinned.

Here’s a sneak preview of

by

Sujata Massey

Available in hardcover from

HarperCollins
Publishers

I’ve never thought of myself as the blindfold type.

Not on planes, not in beds, and certainly not in restaurants. Especially not a place like DC Coast, where I was sitting on the evening of my thirtieth birthday, listening to my dinner companion trying his best to be persuasive.

“What happens next will be very special.” Hugh said, picking up the small black mask that he’d placed next to our shared dessert. “You don’t have to put the blindfold on inside here. Just a little later.”

“You promised no party,” I reminded him, but not sharply. My stomach was filled with a pleasant mélange of tuna tartare and crawfish risotto and crispy fried bass. It had been an orgy of seafood and good wine, just my kind of night.

“Hmm,” Hugh said, studying the restaurant bill.

“If it’s not a surprise party, where are you taking me?” I prodded.

“Let’s just say I’ve got two tickets to paradise.”

I rolled my eyes, thinking Hugh was showing his age, when I’d rather keep mine confidential. I didn’t mind having a delicious, leisurely dinner, but he’d practically rushed me through cappuccino and crème brûlée. Hugh was frantic to leave, making me think he definitely had something planned.