Autumn Bridge (23 page)

“Well, wasn’t that the worst dinner ever,” Hope said, when she and her older sister, Angela, were back upstairs in her bedroom. Though she was two years younger at eleven, she was the more outspoken of the two. “Whenever they address each other as ‘Mr. Stark’ and ‘Mrs. Stark,’ you know they’re arguing about something.”

“Makoto’s in trouble,” Angela said. “That’s what it’s about.”

“He’s never really in trouble,” Hope said. “He’s the boy, remember? So he gets away with everything.”

“I heard Jiro and Shoji talking about the police. Something bad happened in Chinatown.”

“The Chinatown Bandit,” Hope said, suddenly alarmed. “Did he hurt Makoto?”

Angela shook her head. Hope saw that she wanted to say more, but something was making her hesitate.

“Come on, Angela, out with it.”

“My Japanese is rusty,” Angela said. “I must have misunderstood. And they were speaking in Akaoka dialect, which made it even harder.”

“What did they say?”

Angela took a deep breath before answering.

“They were talking about Makoto as if he’d killed someone.”

“What?”

Angela began to cry.

“I don’t think he’s ever coming home.”

Makoto awoke aboard the SS
Hawaiian Cane
. He felt sick to his stomach. It wasn’t the vast quantity of alcohol that he had consumed the previous night, though that didn’t help, and it wasn’t the nauseating rolling of the ship in the less-than-gentle sea, though that was certainly a contributing factor. It wasn’t even the violence, or the blood, or the death, not even Siu-fong’s death. It was the look of betrayal in her eyes when she stared across the room at Makoto just as the coolie cut her throat. He had promised her and she had trusted him and he had let her down. It wasn’t the heroic conclusion that he had envisioned for
The Escape of the Chinatown Bandit
.

Not that he had escaped, not really. The police wouldn’t be far behind, and neither would the Tongs. Matthew Stark had been wrong. There weren’t two bad possibilities of one or the other, there were three, and the third was both at once. They would catch up with him eventually, and when they did, fine, there would be no escape, but there could still be a heroic, though tragic, conclusion, the Chinatown Bandit fighting to the death.

Before that happened, there was one more thing he had to do.

Makoto got up from the bunk and went out on deck. He watched the brightening sky on the line of the horizon to the east.

The land of the rising sun.

Where that was depended entirely on where you were when the sun came up. From here, it was California. He looked west, into the dark half of the sky, toward Hawaii, toward Japan.

Won’t Genji be surprised to see Makoto. And if Makoto saw in him what he thought he might see, what would he say when Makoto asked him the one question he’d crossed the Pacific to ask — the same one Matthew Stark had asked Makoto in quite another context.

Why?

The lord’s wife gave birth to a daughter. Years passed and no other child was born among wife or concubines. This caused much consternation among the retainers. Without a male heir, the Shogun would not fail to attempt an abolition of the clan. Yet, the lord was undisturbed until the girl, at a very early age, began to display the aspects of great beauty.
He said to his chief bodyguard, There is only one thing worse than a beautiful daughter. Can you name it?
The bodyguard replied that he could not.
An ugly one, the lord said.
The bodyguard did not know whether his lord spoke in earnest or in jest, so, neither laughing nor agreeing, he simply bowed in acknowledgment.
AKI-NO-HASHI
(1311)

“And who are your parents?” the Reverend Abbess Jintoku asked.

The young man laughed and said, “That’s a good question, a very good question indeed.”

“Of course it’s a good question. I am Abbess here. My role in life is to ask good questions. What is your name?”

“Makoto.”

That was a given name only. Very well. It was not for her to judge or demand. If he did not wish to reveal himself more fully, that was his business.

She said, “I take it, Makoto-san, that you are contemplating entering upon a renunciant’s life.”

“Why would you think that?” Makoto said. “It’s the least likely of any possible path in my future.”

“I have a talent for seeing spiritual yearning,” the Abbess said. She had no such ability. What she did have was a good eye for expensive clothing, well-manicured hair, and an air of confidence that came from a lifetime of financial ease. All of these she saw very clearly in Makoto. Mushindo Abbey, like every other religious establishment, could always use another patron. A little religious flattery often went a long way. Even those who thought themselves completely devoid of belief tended to soften when told they had the calling.

“Oh, do you?” Makoto smiled at her. “You said your task is to ask questions. I always thought religious leaders answered them.”

“I am not a religious leader,” she said. “I am no more than a kind of janitor. I clean up and keep things in their place. Metaphorically speaking. Would you care to join me for tea? We can discuss things further.”

“Thank you, Reverend Janitor,” he said, bowing with his hands together in front of him in the Buddhist manner. “Perhaps some other time. Now I must return to Tokyo.”

“To discover your parents,” the Abbess said, “or yourself?”

“Doesn’t one necessarily lead to the other?”

“A very good question, Makoto-san. Perhaps you, too, have a talent for janitorial work.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” he said. With a final bow, he turned and walked down the path to the gate of the abbey.

She watched him until he was out of sight. Whom did he remind her of? Oh, well, it would come to her later. Or not. It didn’t matter. She was confident she would see him again. His comments about the true history of the battle indicated a degree of interest in Mushindo that exceeded the usual. Yes, Makoto-san would be back, perhaps as a generous, regular donor. She turned away from the gate and proceeded to her workshop.

Of the many tasks required by her office, the Reverend Abbess Jintoku most enjoyed the preparation of holy relics. Before they could be offered to the public, the bullets, the charred wood fragments, the remnant scraps of scrolls, all needed to be placed into vials made of hollow bamboo segments, each about the size of a little finger, and in appearance not entirely unlike the mummified remains of one, a useful reminder to temple guests of the tenuous state and eventual fate of all living beings. Once a vial was selected by a supplicant and its contents verified, a donation was gratefully accepted and the open end closed once again with a bamboo plug. In the beginning, the relics had been sold for a set price, but the Abbess, a naturally good businesswoman with a keen understanding of human nature, believed that donations would bring greater income, a belief that was quickly validated by a tenfold increase in revenue. When left to decide for themselves, those seeking material assistance from the other realm tended strongly to err on the side of generosity, lest they offend the very spirits whose help they sought.

Lately, the Abbess had begun to quarter the bullets and place ever smaller fragments of wood and scraps of scrolls into the vials. Their popularity had resulted in a noticeable diminution of what had once seemed an inexhaustible supply. Once they were actually gone, she would not hesitate to manufacture relics — it being her own firm religious conviction that sincere belief, rather than material reality, was of paramount importance — but, as a matter of simplicity, she preferred to supply the genuine article as long as possible. She saw no value in irresponsible honesty, however. If the Abbey ever ran out of relics to offer, the stream of visitors would cease, and thus so would the livelihood of a significant number of the inhabitants of Yamanaka Village. As the trusted spiritual leader of the community, she could not in good conscience allow that to happen.

This work, which the Abbess had done for so many years, had a certain natural rhythm of its own, which freed her from the burden of thought. Her left hand held a segment of bamboo, her right, a scrap of scroll; her eyes beheld both hands, the bamboo, and the paper; she heard, without fixing upon them, the sounds of her heart, her breathing, a distant childish voice laughing; she closed the vial with a suitable piece of bamboo, tightly enough that it would not fall out and displace the paper, but not too tightly that it would be difficult to remove for a supplicant’s inspection prior to selection; she placed the vial in the box for vials containing pieces of scroll. Then she began the process again.

Her left hand reached for a bamboo segment, which came from the grove beside the temple.

Her right hand grasped a piece of scroll, which had been left at the temple by Lady Emily.

Her heart in her chest made the slow swooshing sound of a sea creature swimming leisurely in friendly waters.

Her breathing was very relaxed, and slowed and paused and resumed of its own accord.

The child laughed again, more distant now, moving in the direction of the valley.

The Reverend Abbess Jintoku closed the vial with a suitable piece of bamboo.

A few breaths, minutes, or hours passed in this way. Since she began anew with each vial, and attached to no thoughts as she worked, she had no consciousness of any passage of time. Only when she stopped for the day and saw the number of vials, or noticed the length of the shadows, or sometimes the almost complete absence of light, did she consider the time. Then she went into the meditation hall for her evening sitting before retiring for the night.

Today, the Reverend Abbess did not entirely lose herself in her favorite task. She kept thinking of the handsome visitor with the odd accent, and thinking of him, found herself thinking also of that long-ago visit by Lady Emily and Lady Hanako. It was during the tragic and sorrowful events of those days that the ruins of Mushindo Monastery had become Mushindo Abbey. Or had become an abbey again, for if what the two ladies had told Kimi was true, Mushindo had originally been an abbey, not a monastery. That had been almost six hundred years ago. What strange circumstances had brought the abbey into being both times. It was hard to believe, but it did explain one of the mysteries of the place, or at least its occurrence if not its precise nature.

Such an endless flow of memory and speculation naturally prevented her from slipping into the noncontemplative peace that usually accompanied her work. Thoughts, like our selves, were only bubbles in the stream, it was true. But when she so indulgently let herself focus on the bubbles, the stream could not carry her away. Sometimes, it was most appropriate to cease trying. She returned the scrolls, wood, and bullets to storage, gathered up the vials she had constructed, and proceeded to the meditation hall. Before entering, she stopped at the table that discreetly displayed the offering of holy relics and placed the vials in their appropriate places.

Evening was an entirely voluntary meditation period for the nuns of Mushindo. Participation in morning and midday sittings was required by the frequent presence of guests from the outside. It was, in a sense, a kind of performance to establish the monastic quality of the abbey. But at night, there were no guests, and thus no requirement. In the early days, no one sat then. Over the years, this had changed, and now everyone sat at night, too, at least briefly. Even those with families in the village sat before changing out of their religious garb and returning home.

Yasuko had been the first to engage in night sitting.

She said, If I am sincere and persistent, Buddha will surely answer my prayers and fix my deformity. Don’t you agree, Reverend Abbess?

Yasuko had been the one who tried to hang herself when she had been a captive of the slave raiders in Yokohama, and had managed only to mangle her neck. She was desperate to return to her home village, marry, have children, and resume a normal life. But no one would ever marry a woman whose head lolled off to one side so idiotically. Thus her fervent presence in the meditation hall during every spare hour.

Buddha never fixed Yasuko’s neck, but perhaps he did hear her prayers and answer them in his own way, for one day, quite suddenly it seemed, all her anguish, frustration, anger, and self-loathing disappeared, and a gentle peacefulness descended on her.

Reverend Abbess, she said, I wish to truly take holy orders.

The Abbess performed what she could remember of the initiation ceremony Old Abbot Zengen had given for Jimbo, when Jimbo had become a disciple of Buddha. The only part of it that she was entirely sure of was the repetition of the Four Great Vows, so she had Yasuko and the rest of the assembly repeat the vows one hundred and eight times, complete with a full prostration at the end of each recitation.

I vow to:

Rescue the infinity of beings—