II
During the twenty-minute ride from Osaka, Eliza leafed idly through one of her travel books, but she had the attention span of an amoeba. Was Kimura leading her on? Or was she coming close to the end of almost two months of hard work? The Japanese countryside flashed by, a dizzying patchwork of lush green farms separated by mini-forests. She knew very little about Kyoto, except that it had been the capital of Japan during the rule of the shoguns, which lasted for a thousand years, and that many Westerners believed it to be the most beautiful city in the world. But she paid little attention to its beauty as she rushed through the giant arched torii at the park entrance. She could see Tofuku-ji, rising above the other pagodas, and she ran toward it. Statues of shogun warriors crouched in the shadows of the curved eaves of the temples and lurked under cedar and pine trees. The grounds and stone gardens were immaculately manicured and every building, every tree and pond and garden, seemed perfectly placed and in tune with nature. The rain clouds had passed, now, and soft sunlight bathed the heart of the park.
When she reached the garden of the Tofuku-ji, the grounds were deserted and quiet. A breeze rattled gently through the cedar and fir trees. Somewhere, from inside one of the buildings, she heard the soft ping of wind bells. A fish jumped in one of the ponds. Then it was silent again.
The hail of the shoguns was a small, dark, forbidding hail near the main temple, a startling and strange place, out of context with the peaceful aura of the rest of the park. It was as if they were there to guard the integrity of the place, two long rows of wooden statues, the Ashikaga shoguns, sixteen of them, seated facing one another, their fierce glass eyes aglow in the dim light. She walked timidly into the place, squinting her eyes to get accustomed to the dark, peering nervously from one row to the other as she walked down the highly polished wooden floor, her heels clacking hollowly until she finally rose on her tiptoes and hurried to the other end of the room. She was relieved when she got outside. She stood under the curved pagoda roofs of the Tofuku-ji, wondering whether it would be sacrilegious to smoke.
Behind her, inside the darkened hallway of warriors, there was movement. A man stepped from behind one of the statues, his mean eyes glowing almost as fiercely as the agates in the faces of the statues. He moved closer, then stopped finally and waited, as still as the statutes that protected him. A man was approaching her from the other side of the stone garden. He stepped farther back into the shadows.
He was an ancient Japanese man, erect and proud, his delicate beard and wispy hair the colour of snow, his skin almost transparent with age, as if cellophane had been wrapped around his fragile bones to keep them together. He wore a traditional kimono of dark-blue silk, zori sandals, a wide, flat thatched hat that looked like a platter, and he was carrying an umbrella, which he used as a cane. He came to her silently, as if his footsteps left no mark behind them. He stopped in front of her. He was taller than she had imagined he would be and he stood for a moment looking down at her.
‘Well, Gunn-san, you do not appear very dangerous.’
‘Me? Dangerous?’ She laughed. ‘I just ran through that museum of statues over there like a four-year-old running in the dark.’
She knew Japanese businessmen were sticklers about exchanging business cards and she offered him hers. Kimura looked at it for a moment and put it away in the folds of his kimono. ‘I am sorry, I do not have a card,’ he said. He gazed down at her through fading brown eyes, and added, ‘You are certainly prettier than the others who have come looking for Kazuo.’
‘Believe me, I am Eliza Gunn and I work for WCGH in Boston and I have come because I am a friend of O’Hara’s.’
‘Ah? And how long have you known O’Hara-san?’
She chewed the corner of her lip. ‘Well, I really don’t know
O’Hara. Personally, I mean. I know a lot about him, though.
I have a message for him, a letter from Charles Gordon Howe.
He is one of the most respected men in journalism.’
‘I know of Howe. It is rumoured he is honest.’
‘Thanks for that, anyway.’
‘It proves nothing.’
‘If he will just meet me, I can tell him whom to call to verify the letter.’
‘I have not said I know the whereabouts of O’Hara, your friend.’
‘Okay, so I exaggerated. But if you did know how to get in touch with him, you could tell him it’s important to see me, right?’
They walked along the bank of one of the many ponds in the park. The chill wind blew across the water, forming mist that swirled among the mossy rocks at its edge.
‘Even if I knew where O’Hara-san was, I would use caution in repeating anything to him,’ Kimura said. ‘When a blind man leads a blind man, they are both in danger of falling in the river.’
‘Supposing I told you the sanction has been lifted. That he’s no longer in danger.’
The old man made no sign of surprise. He said, ‘In the Shinto philosophy there is a saying: “The man who faces a chasm in front and behind must sit and wait.” To take a false step in a time of danger is to invite disaster.’
‘But I’m telling you, the danger is gone.’
‘It will take much proof. The one they call Fuyu-san, the Winter Man, has the heart of a weasel and the tongue of a crow. I would trust a cobra first.’
‘But that’s the point. The Winter Man has been neutralized. He’s impotent now. It’s Mr Howe who is making the assurance.’
‘An improvement.’
