Zen Attitude (18 page)

A three-inch cement ledge ran along the outside of the balcony railings, just wide enough for me to perch on if I stood on my toes. Then I could step across to the next balcony.

People on the street pleaded with me not to jump, to stay until the fire department arrived. I forbade myself to look down at them as I straddled the balcony and stepped over onto a skinny ledge bordering it. I rotated around with tiny tiptoeing steps until I was facing the Ito balcony.
Picture success.

Taking deep breaths, I stretched my right arm, and then leg, to the other side. As I paused, spread-eagled between the two balconies, a rough summer breeze whipped up my dress, giving me an embarrassing incentive to finish my travels. Swiftly I moved my left hand and leg to join the rest of me. Then I threw a leg over the railing and launched myself into Mrs. Ito’s tidy laundry racks. I went over with a row of shirts and underpants, wet but safe.

Getting out of Tokyo would have been easier if I’d had shoes on. But in a shoes-off household there was no footwear stored in the bedroom, so I wound up going barefoot through Mrs. Ito’s apartment. Mesmerized by a television game show, my neighbor never saw me. I ran down the building’s emergency-use-only staircase, slithering out the side exit and past the Punk Rock Coffee Shop to Roppongi-dori. The first shoe store I found sold only athletic shoes, and an ugly pair of Asics was the sole thing they could pull up in my size.

I was tying the shoes when the pocket telephone began ringing in my duffel bag. I hastily dug it out and said hello. It was the Roppongi Hills concierge, who liked to practice English.

“Miss Shimura, are you safe? People were reporting a suicide girl on the balcony of the fourteenth floor. After your recent burglary, I was worried.”

“Of course I’m safe! I was just, ah, doing some gymnastics.”

“You were? Ah, here comes Mr. Glendinning from the elevator. He looks very upset. Will you kindly wait?”

I hung up immediately and bought the shoes. I was ready to run for it, but first I would make a free phone call. Leaning against a newspaper kiosk, I dialed my aunt in Yokohama. Her answering machine told me what I’d forgotten; the whole family had gone on vacation. Their house in Yokohama was locked up, and there was no way I could take shelter.

I dialed Information and got the number for Asia Center, a budget hotel I’d stayed in during my first month in Tokyo. The desk clerk told me every room was booked, which I should have expected for midsummer. I hung up and considered trying to negotiate an all-night rate in a love hotel, but being nestled in the midst of lovers would be too depressing. In the end, I did what I’d been thinking of all along: I called Akemi Mihori.

We met an hour later outside the west exit of Kamakura Station. Akemi was stretching her legs at the taxi stand, wearing a Simply Red T-shirt and athletic shorts.

Akemi’s expression hardened when she looked at my puffy eye. “You won’t have to worry about him hitting you once I’ve started your self-defense training.”

“Like I told you on the phone, he thought I was a burglar. It wasn’t intentional.” I couldn’t tell her how much more painful it had been when Hugh scrapped our relationship in favor of Angus. She wouldn’t understand.

“Today’s a
tomobiki
, which actually makes it fairly convenient for you to move in.” Akemi started walking up Komachi-dori, Kamakura’s tourist-packed shopping street.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The priest’s day off. It comes every six days or so, and gives my father and Kazuhito a chance to leave the grounds and take care of personal business. Many priests play golf, but my family went to”—she made a face—“a museum. Miss Tanaka’s still in the house, though, so we can’t eat there. I thought we should go out to eat.”

“Dressed like that?” I inclined my head toward her skimpy gym outfit.

“It’s my coach’s sister’s place. She’d be honored to have me any way I’m dressed.” Akemi spoke without arrogance, and as she swung through central Kamakura I could see how she was considered a neighborhood girl. A rumpled grandfather type selling postcards called out to her, two women in an incense shop waved, and a young man roasting rice crackers offered her a freebie. For someone who had declared herself friendless, she certainly knew a lot of people.

“Aren’t you concerned about being seen with me? They must know your mother, and even though we started to make up at the party, I’m sure she hates me now.”

“Nobody talks to my mother,” Akemi said shortly. “They say my mother wants to kill the town of Kamakura.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! She’s president of the Green and Pristine Society.”

“That’s where the trouble began. She cannot stand what’s happened to the town. Every hectare of land is being used for houses, and now the real estate developers are going after the hills, tearing up the old caves and burial grounds. My father was thinking about selling some of our mountain property, but my mother said no. The land is holy and not for anyone to sell.”

Converts were always the most zealous. I cared about Japanese traditional arts more than any of my Yokohama-born relatives. It sounded as if Nana, who had married into an old Kamakura family, had become the standard-bearer. I liked her a little more, knowing this.

“She pressured all the families who own mountain land not to sell,” Akemi continued. “Of course, all that’s done is drive the bidding higher. So when somebody finally gives in, they’ll be even richer.”

“How can you fault her for wanting to save the land?”

“Well, she and the other Kamakura millionaires can afford to be high-minded, can’t they? That’s what people in town said. The real battles started last fall, when she proposed a ban on all private cars in the city.”

“For tourists I can understand it, but for locals?” I was amazed.

Akemi nodded. “Under her plan, only official city vehicles and minibuses would be allowed on the streets. She thought it would eliminate traffic jams and preserve Kamakura’s old-fashioned character. Of course, the shopkeepers screamed that her preservation would kill their businesses, and the residents who use cars to drive to work were upset, too. The motion was shot down within a few weeks, but people have never forgotten. Hey, this is where we go in.”

I’d been to the Zen Café before for its slightly trendy macrobiotic menu. I’d been treated in a polite but distant manner, so it was nice going in with Akemi, who received warm hellos from every waitress and inspired the old man who’d been washing pots in the open kitchen to come out and pinch her cheek. As early as it was for dinner, most of the tables were already gone. We took seats at a table underneath a tiny speaker playing the latest Akiko Yano disc. I should have felt tranquil, but Akemi’s story about her mother had disturbed me.

“Sake?” Akemi poured without waiting for my answer.

“I actually sold two
hibachi
yesterday. I’m paying for my half of dinner.” I decided to speak up before she threw more hospitality moves at me.

“Don’t say that until you’ve tasted it. Westerners usually have problems with Zen cuisine.”

“I’m a vegetarian just like you,” I reminded her.

“You won’t be able to cook in the teahouse, or use the toilet or wash. I don’t know how a person could live there.”

I’d had the idea to stay there when I’d telephoned Akemi. The rickety teahouse was buried so far into temple grounds that no one knew it existed. It would be the perfect place for me to stay while I worked to find more permanent housing.

“I’ll use the public toilets near the temple’s main hall, and I can get my water from the drinking fountain,” I suggested. When I was young, I’d read a marvelous novel about a girl who, with her little brother, moved into the Metropolitan Museum of Art and lived undetected for weeks. Part of me had always wanted to have such an adventure.

“Don’t wander too far,” Akemi said abrupdy. “In the mountains there are some caves that are the old burial places for monks. Every ten years some fool wanders up there and gets lost in the tunnels. I know your interest in history, so I’m warning you.”

“I won’t go there, and I’ll be out of the teahouse in a few days, I promise. I’m so grateful to you. I’ll use this time to work so hard, I’ll never need to depend on anyone again.”

Adding emphasis to my statement, the pocket phone rang inside my backpack. “Rei Shimura Antiques!” I answered brightly. All I heard was breathing on the other end and then a click. Typical. When Japanese people dialed a wrong number and heard someone answer in English, the experience was usually so shocking that they either fell silent or giggled uncontrollably. I turned my attention back to my friend. “Once again, I really appreciate your help. I’ll stay out of your way and try not to be the guest from hell.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be more like the guest
in
hell. Did you bring mosquito repellent?”

Akemi found a citronella candle tall enough to burn all night, but that wasn’t any barrier to the cicadas, the centipedes, and the
tanuki
—a dark-eyed, spooky Japanese species of raccoon—who all came to inspect me. I had not thought about how dark the forest would be, nor how the wind and forest creatures would stir all night long. Every rime I started to drift off, I would awaken to a subtle sound that set my heart pounding.

No one outside of the Mihoris and their monks knew about the teahouse, but it didn’t feel secure to me. Now that I was alone, the rashness of my decision hit me. The sliding wooden doors that formed the four sides of the simple house had no locks, and the window areas were weakly shielded with old, pardy torn paper. Lying on the aged, mildew-reeking futon Akemi had dragged out from somewhere, I concluded the teahouse was about as secure as the cardboard boxes the homeless lived in around Shinjuku Station. Then again, the homeless had overzealous police protection, while my only link to civilization was the pocket phone.

It was fairly ironic that I had climbed like a monkey fourteen stories over Tokyo and was succumbing to terror of Mother Nature. Hugh would tease me about it, I thought before remembering he was the cause of at least half my troubles. It was not a good idea to think about him tonight, not even to take my mind off of the creepy-crawly things just inches away.

Running in the rain the next morning was a disaster. I was so exhausted I could barely keep my feet moving, and every time I moaned about it to Akemi, she told me to visualize my success. When a lashing rain started, I took cover under a canopy of wisteria, but watching Akemi press on made me feel so guilty I started up again. Akemi didn’t look back but must have heard me squelching along the trail, because she slowed enough for me to catch up.

“The most difficult runs are the ones that build your endorphins. Really. Just think, the shower afterward is going to feel great.”

The water pounding down on me ten minutes later was as wonderful as she had promised. I tried not to stay under too long because Akemi was waiting her turn. I toweled off regretfully, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and tossed my damp athletic clothes into the hamper she’d shown me. While my friend bathed, I made a pot of tea in the
dojo
office. The only foodstuff I located was dry rice cakes—something I’d have to improve on.

After our snack, I left Akemi at the
dojo
and headed off across the temple grounds. I peered through the rain at the main hall, where Zen prayers were taking place. I could see the backs of a few dozen monks and visitors sitting cross-legged before a beautiful bronze Buddha. Afterward they would be invited to try the temple’s famous rice gruel. Not satisfied with the rice cake snack, I bought a packet of sweet-potato chips from the temple’s snack stand, which had just opened. I couldn’t shop there too often; I didn’t want my presence on the temple grounds to be noted.

Inside the teahouse, I rolled up the futon, stuck it in the closet, and tried to organize my possessions in the small cabinet where someone had stored old tea ceremony bowls. I ran my fingers over the rough glaze on the bowls. They were simple, lovely, and probably worth tons of money.

Flipping open the pocket phone, I dialed the answering machine at Roppongi Hills. My standard, bilingual message welcoming callers to leave messages for Hugh Glendinning or Rei Shimura Antiques had been replaced by a long burst of Skinny Puppy and a few rude words from Angus. Grimly I pressed the code that allowed me access to messages. There were plenty of hang-ups; only Lieutenant Hata and Mrs. Kita, the customer who had hired me to buy the
hibachi
, had been brave enough to “leave it at the beep,” as Angus had instructed. I studied the pocket phone manual until I figured out how to erase the music and tape a new message. Then I began returning phone calls.

Mrs. Kita wanted me to look for an antique Zen scroll. I was in the perfect location to begin my search, I thought, making arrangements to meet Mrs. Kita at a coffee shop near the Kamakura Museum of Art at three.

I called Lieutenant Hata next.

“You’re not back at Roppongi Hills,” he said after I’d been patched through to his desk.

“Not exactly—”

“It sounds as if you’re talking on a
pocketo.
When I spoke to Mr. Glendinning yesterday afternoon, he reported his new telephone had disappeared, along with you.”

“That’s nothing compared to what he has,” I protested. “All my wood-block prints and antique textiles, three
tansu
, and enough Imari china to open his own store!”

“Domestic disputes are so unsavory,” Hata lectured. “That is why in Japan, men and women do not live together before marriage.”

“Thanks, but I’ve heard that one from my aunt already. I’ll return the telephone when he asks me for it personally. And if you need the guest list, please ask him to print it out.”

“There is no longer a need for that. I know who owns the telephone cards. Hugh Glendinning told me.”

I was silent.

“The younger brother,
neh?
It makes sense, considering his itinerant lifestyle.”

“What are you going to do with him?” As much as I loathed Angus, I didn’t want him to go to prison.