Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 12 (6 page)

—clothing, tapestries, her books—unmolested

in appearance, like a bruise or a sore you can't touch

but she left a stain as summer grew. The salt-drenched

plants—roses, lilacs—too large to uproot grew sickly

and withered, leaving deliberate yellow scars

that memory, not touch, can hurt and in my mind

I see only green grass, plants flowering all around

her as she beckons from the corner of her garden.

They always left something

for the girl in the window

A beetle pinned

to a scrap of balsam.

A coconut carved

with sweeping-winged

birds

and palms.

For your fits

whispered the sailor

(well-known that I was kept hidden

locked away)

and he retreated

back down the hall

away from my door.

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Richard Parks

Michiko's servant girl Mai carried the deep pink lantern to light their way through the dark city streets. Mai was dead. Since Michiko was, too, that didn't seem so strange. In fact, very little about the situation struck Michiko as odd or even very different from when she was alive. She did have one regret, however—her feet. Michiko missed having feet.

Specifically,
her
feet. They had been quite lovely feet, she thought. Once, in Michiko's honest estimation, her very best feature, and that in a young woman with many good features: long black hair, a lovely smile, fair and unblemished skin. Now where her feet should have been, there was almost nothing; at best a slight vapor, like mist rising on a cold morning or the smoke from a dying fire. She glided along, not quite walking, not quite flying, with Mai leading the way with a paper lantern the color of plum blossoms in spring.

Michiko was going to see her lover. She would come to him in the night and be gone before first light. This was how such things were done. This was proper. A certain amount of discretion was expected from a lady, a delicacy of sensibility and appreciation for the finer points of dress and deportment. While Michiko could no longer change her blue and gold brocade kimono to match the seasons, in all matters in which her current condition did not forestall her, Michiko did what was expected. Now her lover, a handsome, highborn young gentleman, expected her, and she did not intend to disappoint him.

The street was quiet. The gauze veil hanging from Michiko's
boshi
covered her face so that, if anyone had been about, her identity would have been protected, likewise as discretion dictated. Mai's head and face were cowled and hidden as well, but there was no one to see them there. Everyone kept to their houses; the wall gates were all closed, and the lanterns extinguished save for the one Mai carried. Even the dogs were silent.

"Is it so very late, Mai?” Michiko asked, as she looked around.

"The people are hiding, Mistress,” Mai answered. “They are afraid."

"Afraid? Of what?"

"Of what they don't understand. Of what they do understand. Of what will happen. Of what might happen.” After a few moments Mai repeated what she had said before, in the same dull tone. Michiko sighed delicately. Once Mai had been a lively, mischievous girl, but she was changed now. Sometimes it was like talking to a stone buddha—responses were limited and predictable.

"Never mind,” Michiko said. “I would rather think of Hiroi. He seems somewhat unwell lately. Have you noticed?"

"He is very handsome,” Mai said. “My mistress is indeed fortunate."

"Yes, but he is pale—"

"He is very handsome,” Mai repeated, once, and that was all.

In times like these Michiko imagined herself and Mai in some sort of play, for that is the way her world felt to her then. Only she had the better part, and poor Mai could only speak her brief bit, whatever it might be, more like a wooden
bunraku
puppet than a person. Perhaps this was what being dead meant to Mai. For Michiko's part, it was little different than before. Life went on, as did Death. But she did so miss her feet.

Mai turned off the street and through a garden path that led to Hiroi's home. He was a scholar of good family, sent to the city to study for a time under the monks at the nearby Temple of Thousand-Armed Kannon, goddess of mercy. No monk himself, it had been love at first sight when he saw Mai leading her mistress through a darkened city street. “Plum Blossom Firefly” he had called Michiko, and wrote a poem about the lantern. He never noticed her missing feet.

Michiko found herself captivated from the start, as what young woman of taste and refinement would not? Their becoming lovers had been right, and it had happened as soon as decorously possible. Now it continued. Would continue. This was right, too.

Mai stopped on the path. Michiko, in reverie, almost collided with her. She frowned. “Foolish girl! Why have you stopped?"

Mai said a new thing then, something Michiko could not remember her saying before. “I cannot see the way, Mistress."

Michiko sighed. “What nonsense, Mai! Of course you can; this path leads directly to Hiroi's house."

But it was true. There was nothing in front of them now. A solid sort of nothing, like the
kuramaku
that concealed those working behind the scene in a kabuki drama. Michiko removed her hat and veil to get a better look. She put out her hand and her long fingers brushed against a wall of darkness, cold and hard, where the path to Hiroi should have been.

"This is very strange, Mai."

Mai said nothing. She merely stood, with the lantern swaying back and forth on the end of its pole. A strong breeze pushed against it, and sent Michiko's long black hair flying around her like a nimbus, but the paper lantern kept the wind at bay and the light did not go out.

I shall be quite a sight to Hiroi, like this
, Michiko thought. She wondered if he would laugh to see her thus, but of course she would fix her hair before he did any such thing. Yet there was no time for that just now. She peered at the
nothing
ahead of her and, as the breeze swirled past and through her, she noticed something fluttering ahead of her, like a small caged bird. Before the wind died down she leaned forward and was able to make out small rectangles of paper and, as the breeze pushed and prodded them, the
nothing
ahead also seemed to be pushed and prodded, shifting slightly, now so transparent that she could see the path, now solid again so she could see nothing.

"Someone has written something on these scraps of paper and tied them to the bushes along the path."

"Yes,” Mai said, but that was all.

"If the wind was to push hard enough,” Michiko said, “perhaps these impertinent scraps might be persuaded to let us pass."

The wind, which had started to die down, obediently picked up again and set the paper rectangles dancing. The barrier shimmered, and writhed, and the wind blew harder and harder. Michiko's hair flowed around her in long streams and little wavelets and curls, like the currents in a glossy black river. One of the wardings tore loose from a bush and fluttered away like a white moth, then another, then another. The black wall collapsed and blew away with them. In a moment the breeze died away.

"I will hold the lantern while you comb my hair, Mai. Do it quickly and let us be gone. Hiroi is waiting."

Someone else was waiting. They found him when they came to the small wooden bridge that arched over a stream crossing the path some little ways from Hiroi's door. He stood in front of the bridge, blocking their way: a young monk with fierce eyes and a staff of rings that jangled when he brought the staff down hard on the path in front of him.

"Stay back, demon!” he said.

Michiko just stared at him for a moment. “I am not a demon. I am Yoshitomo no Michiko and I have come to see Fujiwara no Hiroi at his own invitation. Stand aside, monk."

"Perhaps you were a girl named Michiko, once,” he said. “Now you are a night demon come to steal the life from that young man. I shall not permit it. I planted wards covered in scripture from the Lotus Sutra. I don't know how you got past them, but you will not get past me."

Michiko had never been spoken to in such a manner and she was in no mood for it. “Such insolence! Are you going to claim that Fujiwara-san put you up to this?"

The monk looked a little uncomfortable. “Hiroi is not in his right mind, demon. He does not understand what you are, nor can I convince him. Yet I saw what was happening. It was my duty to prevent it."

"To keep me away from my love? How is this duty? What vow does it break, what honor uphold? Hiroi wants to see me. I can feel him calling me. Who are you to say what we should and should not do?"

"This place is for the living. You do not belong here!"

Michiko, being a well-bred young lady, covered her mouth with one dainty hand as she smiled. She stepped closer, fully into the glow of the plum blossom lantern. “Yet I
am
here, little monk. You can touch me if you doubt it."

He drew back. “Don't tempt me, demon. I am stronger than you!"

Michiko sighed. “Of course you are. I am but a frail young woman, and no match for a wise and powerful and pious monk like yourself. So let me ask you one question. If you can answer it, I will go away. I will not trouble Hiroi again, though he pines for me every day and I fear for his health."

"No tricks, demon,” the monk said grimly.

"No tricks at all. No riddles, paradoxes, no great obscure pieces of knowledge known only, I am told, to demons of the Ten Hells and the Enlightened. Just a simple question. Agreed?"

The monk frowned. “Well . . . very well. What is your question?"

"First I want to be clear on your understanding. You say I do not belong here. You say I was once the girl called Michiko and am now some foul creature that stalks the night and preys upon the innocent. Is this so?"

"It is,” the monk said.

"Well then, tell me: why am I here?"

"Why? To prey—"

"Please do not repeat yourself, monk. Even if I accept that what you say is true,
what
I do is not the same as
why
. Surely you understand the difference? I am here. Why? I did die; I do not dispute that. I remember a sickness that claimed half the city, and myself and my dear little Mai besides. And yet I remain. She remains, too. Sometimes I think she's here merely as a shadow of me, or of herself, but I remember for us both, and we remain. The Ten Hells did not open their gates to me, nor did Paradise, nor the River of Souls. Why?"

"Perhaps . . . perhaps the funeral rites were not properly performed."

"'Perhaps’ is not an answer, yet I am not so impatient as you think me. Pray for me now, sir monk, with all your power and piety. Open the way to where you say I should be and I promise you I will go, and with gratitude."

The monk immediately sat
zazen
on the foot of the bridge, legs crossed and eyes closed, and he began to chant. He chanted for a long time while Michiko and Mai stood in the glow of the lantern. When he opened his eyes many hours later, Michiko and Mai were waiting, and the lantern was still glowing.

"I belong here, monk,” Michiko said gently. “And Hiroi chose me and he made me love him. We are fated to be together and he is waiting for me now."

"So it seems.” There were tears in the monk's eyes as he stood up and moved aside. His face showed no anger, no fear, but only a great sadness. “A man's karma belongs to him alone,” the monk said. “I will pray for Hiroi's soul instead."

Mai led the way over the bridge with the plum blossom lantern, and Michiko followed serenely. “I would not harm Hiroi for all the world, Mai, but I have no doubt the silly little monk meant well,” she said, but Mai said nothing.

Hiroi was sleeping a restless sleep but he opened his eyes and smiled weakly when Michiko glided into the room. He did look pale, and weary, but he was so glad to see Michiko that soon they both forgot all about that. Mai found a stand for the lantern and made a discreet exit, and when the time came to leave she carried the lantern before them. There was no sign of the monk.

When Michiko went to Hiroi's home again the house was cold and dark, and Hiroi was nowhere to be found. Michiko sent Mai out to make inquiries. Later, in the empty place where they dwelled, Mai returned and told her mistress about the funeral. Hiroi's family was very sad, as was Michiko. She would never forget the beautiful young man, but she also knew that, in time, there would be another. It seemed that there was always another, sooner or later.

Michiko knew it would be soon.

One particular young man, the right young man, the correct and proper young man, would see her walking at night, her servant carrying the plum blossom lantern. He would call her his plum blossom firefly as Hiroi had done, and write poetry to her that did not seem to be about her at all, and yet always was. She would love him, for how could she not? They would be together then and would love one another and be very happy.

For a while.

"The living world was made for joy and sorrow,” Michiko said to Mai. “We are part of that as well."

"Yes, Mistress,” Mai said, but that was all she said. Night was coming. As she had done so many times before, Mai lit the plum blossom lantern.

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Nancy Jane Moore

I used to dream that the Berlin Wall ran down the middle of my house

As the night wore on, the Wall would move

Until the whole house ended up on the wrong side.

I had to escape by crawling through a hole in my closet floor.

I always woke up as I climbed into the hole

So I never knew

If I got away.

When I was five or six

I sat on the living room floor, clutching my teddy bear,

Watching a TV show about a family contaminated by radiation.

Their little girl had to leave her teddy bear behind.

I begged my mama to tell me

That nothing like that would ever happen to me.