He’s staring again. He’s looking straight into my... no into my left eye.
O’Hara was listening to the wind chimes overhead, tickled by a breeze from the door. His eyes went blank, then his mind went blank, and in the no-mind state where he had retreated, her face was etched into the white wall. The large gleaming brown eyes, the shock of black hair, the broad you’re-dead-buddy smile. Now it was a face he would never forget.
‘...earth to O’Hara,’ she was saying.
‘Yeah...’
‘Are you interested?’
‘Uh ... interested?’
‘In Mr Howe’s offer.’
‘I wish you’d stop calling him Mr Howe. Sounds like you’re talking about God.’
‘He’s old. He’s like Tokenrui-san. He deserves it.’
‘Fine. Then call him Howe-san.’
‘Will you get serious? What’s your decision?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, when do you think the muses are going to get in touch?’
‘I’ll tell you in the morning.’
‘Oh.’
‘I need to do some thinking.’
‘I can understand that. Who’d want to go back to the land of the living when you can stay here in the garden spot of Japan and raise puppy dogs.’
O’Hara leaned across the table, very close to her face, and said softly, ‘He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.’
‘How about “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” Don’t tell me you’re going to start doing that now.’
He liked her arrogance, the way she said whatever the hell was on her mind. But he also felt let down. A part of his life was coming to an end. He knew it. Fate had brought the girl there and fate would lure him back with her.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m going to take you across the street to your hotel and then I’m going home and get some rest.’
‘The arm hurts, doesn’t. it?’
‘It’s beginning to burn a little. The pain will be gone by morning.’
‘And you’ll call me?’
‘I’ll call you.’
‘I’ll get the car, Kazuo,’ Sammi said, and he bowed to Eliza. ‘You come back, okay. We’ll teach you the Tao. The Way. Next time.’
They put their shoes on and paid the bill and O’Hara walked her across the Street to her hotel and O’Hara’s shoulder was hurting and he felt rotten, and standing there, he suddenly felt very tired.
‘Oyasuminsai,’ he said and kissed her on the cheek, and started back across the street, and she said, ‘There’s a flight tomorrow afternoon at three,’ and without turning, he said, ‘Well, you better make your reservation. It’s liable to fill up. Sayonara.’
He got in the car and they drove off and left Eliza standing in the doorway of the hotel. A kiss on the cheek, she thought. Well, shit. But she’d get another crack at him. He would come to Boston, she was sure of it. And next time he would not have his shoulder as an excuse.
O’Hara said nothing during the drive back to Kyoto from Osaka, nor did Sammi encourage any conversation. He knew Kazuo was deep in thought. The house of Tokenrui-san was on the curve of a street in the old section of Kyoto. It was built in 1782 and had changed very little since then. The cypress bark on its sloping roof had been replaced many times through the years, as had the waist-high bamboo fence encircling it. But the cypress columns around its railed veranda were originals, as were the delicate screens in the main room, one depicting the return of a warrior to his home, and another, by Isono Kado, a famous artist of the seventeenth century, of a hawk perched on a pine-tree branch. The paintings had been rescued from one of the royal houses during the great fire, which had destroyed more than half the temples and homes of Kyoto in 1788.
For years the house was inhabited variously by students, monks and Heian priests, and it fell into disrepair. Then, in 1950, Kimura’s son-in-law, Tasaguyi, had acquired it and restored it as a wedding gift and dowry to Kenaka, Kimura’s only child. But now Tasaguyi and Kenaka were gone, and he lived there with his two grandchildren, Samushi and Tana.
The house was close to the street and was built like a half-moon, its inside curve facing a lush flower garden built around the fish pond which was fed by a stream that gurgled constantly under a corner of the veranda of the main house. The carp and goldfish, some of them more than four feet long, had been there so long, Kimura had forgotten how old they were.
