A Tale for the Time Being (34 page)

I ran back into the temple and announced that the guests were coming, and things went into overdrive, with Muji running around and bowing and showing people into the shrine room. Across from the
main altar for Shakasama, we’d set up a special osegaki altar for the hungry ghosts, and old Jiko sat in a fancy golden chair. There was a whole bunch of chanting and praying and incense
offering, and then Jiko unrolled this scroll and started reading all the names of the dead. They were all names of family and friends that people from the danka had put on the list, and the scroll
was really long, and Jiko’s old voice droned on and on. The room was still and hot and quiet, and nothing was moving except for the names, and it was kind of boring, but just as I was
starting to drift off, something strange happened. Maybe I was half-asleep and dreaming, but it seemed like the names were alive, like they were alive and floating through the shrine room, and
nobody needed to feel sad or lonely or afraid of dying, because the names were here. It was a nice feeling, especially for the old people who knew they were going to be names on the list very soon,
and when Jiko was finally done reading, everybody got a turn to stand up and make an offering of incense, which took forever but was nice, too.

So it was a long ceremony, but I didn’t mind, because the visiting nuns and priests helped Jiko and Muji with the chanting and bells and the ceremonial stuff, and I got to play the drum.
Muji had trained me to play it and I’d been practicing for weeks. I don’t know whether you’ve ever played a drum before, but if you haven’t you should really try it, because
first of all, it feels good to beat something with a stick as hard as you can, and second of all, it makes an amazing sound.

The temple drum is as big as a barrel, and it sits on a tall wooden platform. When you play it, you stand in front, facing the stretched hide, trying to control your breathing, which is jumping
all over the place because you are so nervous. The priests and nuns are chanting by the big altar, and you listen for your cue, which is getting closer and closer. Then, at just the right moment,
you take a big breath, raise your sticks, draw back your arms, and

You have to get the timing just right, and even though I was scared to make a mistake in front of all those people, I think I did a pretty good job. I really like drumming. While I’m doing
it, I am aware of the sixty-five moments that Jiko says are in the snap of a finger. I’m serious. When you’re beating a drum, you can hear when the
BOOM
comes the teeniest bit
too late or the teeniest bit too early, because your whole attention is focused on the razor edge between silence and noise. Finally I achieved my goal and resolved my childhood obsession with
now
because that’s what a drum does. When you beat a drum, you create
NOW
, when silence becomes a sound so enormous and alive it feels like you’re breathing in the
clouds and the sky, and your heart is the rain and the thunder.

Jiko says that this is an example of the time being. Sound and no-sound. Thunder and silence.

2.

After the osegaki ceremonies were over, we had a party for the guests, and I helped serve the food, which was hideous because I’m such a clumsy girl, so I’m not even
going to bother to describe it. Finally Muji, who was a total wreck by then anyway, got fed up and sent me out on some errand, I don’t remember what, and I happened to walk by Jiko’s
study and noticed that the sliding door was open. It looked like someone was inside. I was still worried about the picture frame and the letter, so I went over to see.

The room was dark, but the candles on the family altar were lit, and an old man was kneeling in front. His back was bent, and his hands were pressed together in front of his face. He bowed,
touching his head to the floor, and then he stood up and shuffled to the altar. His body was as thin as a skeleton, and his suit was hanging off his bones. He had some kind of sash decorated with
rows of medals that he wore around his shoulder, which gave the impression that maybe he was a soldier. When he reached the altar, he lit an incense stick and touched it to his forehead in
offering, and as he reached forward toward the bowl, the trembling ember at the tip of the long thin stick of incense looked like a tiny firefly, wobbling around in the darkness.

He shuffled back and knelt at his place in front of the altar and stayed there for a long time. Sometimes he pressed his hands together with his juzu, and his lips would move. Sometimes he
stopped and listened and then started muttering again. I watched for a while, and then I noticed that Jiko was in the room, too, kneeling in a shadowy corner by the bookshelf, with her eyes closed,
like she was waiting for the old guy to finish whatever it was that he was doing. Of course, I was totally freaked out and afraid they were going to notice that the picture frame was broken and the
letter was missing, but just as I was about to escape, I heard a noise behind me, like an old door sliding open or someone clearing his throat.

The first thing they taught us was how to kill ourselves.

The words were quiet but clear. I looked around but there was no one there, just the late-afternoon sunlight casting shadows across the garden, and the bamboo rustling in the breeze. I
recognized the voice, though.

Maybe you think that’s strange? We were soldiers, but even before they showed us how to kill our enemies, they taught us how to kill ourselves.

A small wind blew through the garden, causing the water in the pond to shiver. A dragonfly, resting there, flew away.

“Is that you?” I whispered as softly as I could. “Haruki Ojisama . . . ?”

They gave us rifles. They showed us how to use our big toe to pull the trigger. How to lodge the tip of the barrel in the V of our jawbone so it wouldn’t slip . . .

My hand rose to my face, and my fingers brushed the underside of my chin.

Here.

My fingers folded themselves into the shape of a gun, thumb up, index and middle fingers pressing into the spot right beneath my jaw. I couldn’t move.

That’s right. We were supposed to kill ourselves rather than allow ourselves to be taken prisoner by the Meriken.
¹³⁴
They made
us practice this over and over again, and if we hesitated or didn’t get it right, the officers would kick us and beat us with batons until we fell down. Well, they would beat us anyway, no
matter if we did it right or wrong. It was to build our fighting spirit.

He laughed, a ghostly chuckle.

My hand dropped to my side.

The wind died then and the air was still and silent. Inside the room, the old guy was still kneeling, and I could tell by the way his body shook and his head hung down like a broken tulip that
he was crying. Jiko just sat there in the corner with her eyes closed, patiently waiting, and for the first time I heard the faint rhythmic sound of her juzu beads, tapping out their tiny
blessings.

When the voice spoke again, I could barely hear it.
That box on the altar. Next to the photographs. Do you see it?

On the altar was a box wrapped in a white cloth. I’d seen it there every day. It looked like a present.

“Yes.”

Do you know what’s inside?

One day when I was helping Muji clean the altar, I’d asked her the same question. She said the box contained the remains of Haruki #1, but when I thought it over, it didn’t make any
sense. The word she used was
ikotsu
,
¹³⁵
but if Haruki #1 died by crashing his kamikaze plane into a battleship, how could there be any
leftover bones? I mean, even if there were any, who would have picked up them up? And where would they have picked them up from? The ocean floor? But Muji wouldn’t answer my questions, and I
couldn’t ask Jiko because it wouldn’t be polite to upset her. Was this a good question to ask a ghost?

“I think . . . they’re your ikotsu, right? That’s what Muji told me, but it doesn’t make sense . . .”

I heard the sound again, like an old wooden door makes when it rattles in the wind.

No sense. No sense at all . . .

And then he was gone. Don’t ask me how I knew. I could just tell by the absence. It was hot, but I was shivering and the little hairs were standing up on my arms, and I was afraid
I’d pissed him off again with my stupid question. Inside the room, the old soldier took a large handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes, and then he slowly pivoted on his knees so
that he was facing Jiko, and the two of them bowed to each other. It took them forever to stand up again after all that bowing, which gave me plenty of time to run away.

3.

Obon lasted for a total of four days, and it’s a crazy time for a couple of nuns. After osegaki was over and all the visitors had left, old Jiko and Muji and I got busy
making the rounds of danka houses to do Buddhist services in front of all the family altars. Back in the old days, they used to walk to all the houses, but when Jiko finally turned one hundred, she
said it would be okay if they drove in a car instead. Muji had to get her driver’s license, which is really tough in Japan and costs a lot of money and takes a long time, even if you’re
good at driving, which Muji isn’t. In fact, she is really bad at driving. The temple has an old car that one of the danka donated, and I sat next to Muji in front, and Jiko sat in back. Muji
gripped the wheel with both hands so tightly her knuckles turned white, and leaned forward so far her nose almost pressed against the windshield. She stalled the car twice trying to start it, and
even when she got it going, she was so nervous she kept hitting the brake. I could see why. The mountain roads were twisty and narrow, and every time we saw another car coming, she had to pull off
onto the nonexistent shoulder to pass. And whenever that happened, old Muji would start bowing politely to the oncoming driver, bobbing her head up and down and almost plunging the car off the side
of the mountain. I’ve never been so scared in my life. One time I looked behind at Jiko, figuring she must be having a heart attack or something, but she was fast asleep. I don’t know
how she does it. Once we got to the parishioner’s house, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to help them, so mostly I just stayed outside and talked with people’s cats.

I still had Haruki #1’s letter in my pocket. By then I’d borrowed old Jiko’s kanji dictionary from off her desk and had pretty much read the whole thing, except for a couple of
words I didn’t understand. At night I sneaked out to the temple gates and waited in a cloud of fireflies, hoping he would come once more, but he never did.

4.

After Obon, it was just the three of us again, but before we could settle back into our routine, summer vacation was over, and I only had a few days left before my dad came to
pick me up and take me home. I was really bummed, so Jiko and Muji decided to make a little going-away party for me. Not that I’m a big fan of parties, but we decided to make pizza, which
came out pretty badly because none of us knew how to make crusts, but we didn’t mind. We had chocolates for dessert, because old Jiko really loved chocolates, and we also decided to sing some
karaoke.
¹³⁶
It was Muji’s idea. By then one of the danka had given us an old computer and helped us get online, and I found a pretty good
karaoke website where you can download songs, and even though we didn’t have a microphone, we were still able to sing and dance and make a lot of noise. We took turns, and then we voted on
which song each person sang best.

My best hit was the old Madonna classic “Material Girl,” and I did my dance number on the engawa, framed by the sliding doors, which looked like a stage. I translated the words for
Jiko and she thought the whole thing was hilarious. Muji sang an R. Kelly number called “I Believe I Can Fly,” but when she sang it it sounded like “I Bereave I Can Fry,”
which totally cracked me up. But Jiko won the all-around best hit of the evening with “Impossible Dream,” which is a song from an old Broadway musical. I’m not a big fan of old
Broadway musicals, but Jiko really liked this song, and even though her voice isn’t so strong anymore, she sang it with real feeling. It’s a sentimental song about how it’s okay
to have impossible goals, because if you follow your unreachable star no matter how hopeless or far, your heart will be peaceful when you’re dead, even though you might be scorned and covered
with scars like I am while you’re still alive. I could really identify with the lyrics, and Jiko’s quivery old voice was beautiful to hear. She really put her heart into it, and I think
maybe she sang it for me.

That night, she came to my room to say good night, slipping along the engawa and in through the sliding doors like a breeze from the garden, so quietly I didn’t hear her coming. She knelt
next to my futon and put her hand on my forehead. Her old hand was dry and cool and light, and I closed my eyes, and before I knew it, I was telling her all about Haruki #1’s ghost, how
he’d visited me on the temple steps on the first night of Obon but he left because I couldn’t think of any interesting conversational topics and I sang him a dumb French chanson
instead. And how I felt so stupid and disrespectful, I had to visit his photograph on the altar so I could apologize, and while I was holding the picture his face seemed to come alive, but then I
broke the frame and his letter fell out, so I took it. And how I begged him to come back, and he did, and he told me about how when he was a soldier the officers used to beat him up to build his
fighting spirit, and he showed me how to shoot myself in the throat using my toe rather than be taken prisoner by the Merikens, but then he went away and I never saw him again.