Cloud of Sparrows (52 page)

Only Goro kept going. He dropped to his knees beside Jimbo and screamed and moaned. He waved his arms helplessly over the body as if trying to embrace what was no longer there.

Kimi knelt beside Goro and put one of her arms across his shoulder. With stubborn determination, she overlaid her memories of Jimbo over the ruined face, and saw him as she would remember him.

“Don’t cry, Goro,” she said, though she was crying herself. “This isn’t Jimbo anymore. He’s gone ahead to Sukhavati, the Pure Land, so when we get there, he’ll greet us, and we won’t be afraid. Everything will be wonderful in Sukhavati.”

She was sure it would be because Jimbo had said it would, and he had always told them the truth. She believed it, but she was not in the Pure Land, she was still on this sad and terrible earth, and here everything was not wonderful.

Jimbo was dead.

She and Goro held each other and wept.

Stark got on his horse. He could hear the cries of weeping children inside the monastery walls. He heard them, and he felt nothing.

Not better.

Not worse.

The same as before, which was nothing at all.

He put his boot heels to his horse’s ribs and the horse moved.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

Persistent, as the Christian priests tend to be in these matters, Father Vierra asked if it was something he had done or something he had not done.

Lord Yakuo said regret was an elixir for poets. He had lived the life of a rough, unlettered warrior, and would die as one.

Father Vierra, seeing the smile on Lord Yakuo’s lips, asked if he regretted being a warrior instead of a poet.

Lord Yakuo continued to smile, but did not answer.

While Father Vierra asked questions, Lord Yakuo entered the Pure Land.

“The children’s Christmas pageant had so much of your attention,” Heiko said, “it’s no wonder.”

“Zephaniah would have been happy to see it,” Stark said. “So many promising young Christians.”

They sat in the large room overlooking the innermost courtyard of Quiet Crane. The reconstruction of the palace had been so meticulously exact, every tree, bush, and pebble in the garden seemed the same as before. The view was only slightly altered, in the northeast corner, by a steeple topped with a small white cross. Genji’s architects had performed brilliantly. Emily’s wishes for a chapel were fulfilled while the requirement of not flaunting its existence to the rest of Edo was also met. The cross could be seen from almost every inner vantage point within the palace and from nowhere outside of it. A strategic placement of walls and tall trees with especially dense foliage was employed for the purpose.

The chapel was not used for sermons or services of the usual kind. Emily was not a preacher. She was far too shy, and not nearly as certain as a preacher must be of the exclusive truth of her faith. In a year, she had seen enough of charity, compassion, selflessness, devotion, and every Christian virtue displayed by nonbelievers to doubt exclusivity was part of God’s plan. Great is the mystery of godliness, she said to herself, and added a silent amen.

Instead of preaching, she taught Sunday school to curious children. Their parents, often followers of both Buddha and the Way of the Gods, apparently had no objection to lessons from yet another faith. How one person could even think of believing in three religions at the same time was yet another of the many unimaginable mysteries Emily had encountered in Japan.

The stories and parables she told, translated by Heiko, found great favor among her young listeners, who steadily grew in number. Lately, some of the mothers had been staying to listen, too. So far, none of the men had come. Genji had offered, but she could not permit it. If he came, his vassals would follow out of duty, and their wives and concubines and children, all out of duty to Genji, and not from the hunger for God within their own breasts.

The samurai all practiced the disciplines of the Zen sect, a religion without preaching, indeed without any doctrine she could perceive, all serious and grim and silent. Was it a religion at all? She once asked Genji to explain it to her, and he just laughed.

There is little to explain. I only play at it. I am too lazy to truly do it.

What is done?

He sat in the contortionist position called the lotus, with each foot on the opposite thigh, and closed his eyes.

And what is it you are doing? It seems to me you are doing nothing at all.

I am letting go, Genji said.

Letting go? Letting go of what?

First, bodily tension. Second, thoughts. Third, everything else.

To what end?

You are so much a person of the West, Genji said, always thinking of ends. The means are the end. You sit. You let go.

And once you have let go, then what?

Then you let go of letting go.

I don’t understand.

Genji smiled, uncrossed his legs, and said, Old Zengen would say that’s a good beginning. I’m not a good example. I never get beyond letting go of bodily tension, and often I don’t even get that far. When the Reverend Abbot Tokuken comes down from the mountains, he will explain better. He was old Zengen’s best disciple. But we shouldn’t count on it. He may have attained such clarity, he can no longer speak at all.

You say such silly things sometimes, she said. The greater the clarity, the more precise the explanation, the more perfect the transmitted understanding. That is why God gave us the gift of speech.

Zengen once told me, the greatest clarity is profound silence. In fact, those are the words that sent Tokuken into the mountains. He heard them, and the next day he departed.

When was that?

Five or six years ago. Maybe seven.

Emily smiled to herself. She thought she could be in Japan for the rest of her life and still not understand. She looked up and saw Genji smiling at her. Perhaps it wasn’t so important to understand after all. Perhaps what was most important was to care.

“Good morning, lord.” Hidé bowed at the entrance to the room. Hanako, bowing behind him, cradled their newborn.

“Have you named him yet?” Genji said.

“Yes, lord. We thought to call him Iwao.”

“A good name,” Genji said. “‘Steady as stone.’ May he be so, like his father.”

Hidé bowed, embarrassed at the compliment. “The father is thick as stone, anyway. I hope the son will be brighter.”

“May I hold him?” Heiko said.

“Please,” Hanako said.

She moved with such ease and grace the absence of her left arm did not call attention to itself. Rather, one sensed only an unusual degree of gentleness in her every movement. She had, Heiko thought, gained in womanliness rather than lost.

Heiko said, “What a handsome boy. He will surely break many hearts in the years to come.”

“Oh, no,” Hanako said, “I will not permit it. He will fall in love once, and he will be true from beginning to end. He will break not a single one.”

“Hidé, call in our clan historian,” Genji said. “Your son is apparently destined to be the first and last of his kind.”

“You may laugh at me,” Hanako said, also laughing, “but I see nothing lacking in a simple, straightforward heart.”

“That is because you have been fortunate,” Heiko said, “to win the affection of just such a one.”

“I am nothing of the sort,” Hidé said. “My tendencies and habits are toward laziness, insincerity, and dissipation. If my behavior is better than that, it is only because I no longer have the freedom to be worse.”

“Easily cured,” Genji said. “Say the word and I will instantly dissolve this most inconvenient marriage.”

Hidé and Hanako looked at each other warmly.

Hidé said, “I fear it is too late. I have grown too used to my captivity.”

Stark said to Emily, “May I wish you a happy birthday now, Emily, since I won’t be here on that day?”

“Thank you, Matthew.” Emily was surprised he remembered. “Thank you very much. Time passes so quickly, it will be no time before I’m an old maid.” She said it sweetly, not to elicit a compliment or a denial, but as something she truly looked forward to. The more beautiful a woman, the more she had to lose with the change of every season. Here in Japan, she had at last no beauty at all, and so nothing whose presence or loss called for the least lamentation.

Heiko said, “You’re not even close to being an old maid. Eighteen is considered only the beginning of womanhood, the time of the first true blooming.”

Genji said, “We have a saying. ‘Even cheap tea tastes good on the first brewing. Even a witch’s daughter is beautiful at eighteen.’ ”

Emily laughed. “Why, Lord Genji, I don’t know if I should take comfort in that.”

“Really, my lord,” Heiko said, “is that your best compliment?”

“I suppose it doesn’t exactly illustrate the point, does it?”

Heiko saw by the way Emily looked at Genji, her very eyes smiling, her skin aglow, that she had taken no offense.

“Shall I?” Hanako asked.

“Certainly,” Heiko said, giving her back her son.

“How far will you go?” Hanako said.

“Nothing has been decided,” Heiko said. “I think, perhaps, San Francisco, for the time being. At least, until the civil war in America is at an end.”

“How exciting. And how frightening. I cannot imagine living outside of Japan.”

“I cannot imagine it, either,” Heiko said. “Fortunately, experiencing it, I will not have to imagine.”

“What an honor,” Hanako said, “that Lord Genji has chosen you to be his eyes and ears across the sea.”

“Yes,” Heiko said. “A high honor indeed.”

America? Why must I go to America?

Because I trust no one else so completely.

Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but if exile is the reward, it would be more comforting to be trusted less.

You are not being exiled.

I am being forced from my homeland, across the sea, to a barbarous land whose ways are completely unknown to me. If this is not exile, what is it?

Preparation for the future. I have had a vision. In a very short time, everything will change. Anarchy and upheaval will destroy the ways we have followed for two thousand years. We must have a place of refuge. That is your task. To find such a place.

Genji, if you no longer love me, just say so. Such an elaborate ruse is unnecessary.

I love you. I will always love you.

Your words and your actions are not in harmony. A man does not send the woman he loves half a world away.

He does if he intends to join her.

You will leave Japan? Impossible. You are a Great Lord. You may well become Shogun in time. You cannot leave.

How much of the impossible has already happened, Genji said, foreseen in vision after vision by one Okumichi after another. It seems impossible, yes, but can we doubt it? You will go to America, and one day, I will follow.

When will that day come?

I’m not certain. Perhaps another vision will instruct me.

I don’t believe you.

After all that we have been through, how can you doubt me? Why would I ask you to go, if it were not true? Why would I commission Stark to guide and protect you? Why would I send a fortune in gold with you? Heiko, as strange as it seems, the only explanation is the one I have given you. This is proof of my love, not proof of its absence.

She consented. What else could she do? She believed he loved her still. She could see it in his eyes, and feel it in his touch. But he was lying to her. About what, and why?

Ever since he had gone to talk with Kawakami before the fight at Mushindo Monastery, something had changed. What had Kawakami said? Genji claimed he had said nothing special, had only invited him to a meeting so he could taunt him. That couldn’t be true. Kawakami had said something. What?

Emily said, “Are you not from Texas, Matthew?”

“I am.”

“Then will you fight in the war when you return home?”

“He cannot fight,” Genji said, “at least, not right away. He is to establish a trading company and hold it as our proxy.”

“I will not fight in any case,” Stark said. “I was a child in Ohio. I became a man in Texas. How could I bear arms against either?”

“I am glad of it,” Emily said, “in that you will not fight for slavery.”

“Lord.” A samurai knelt at the doorway. “A messenger from the harbor has arrived. The morning tide has begun to flow. The ship must soon depart.”

“Still bound to the tide,” Genji said.

“Not for much longer,” Stark said. “Captain McCain told me the
Star
will be outfitted with a steam engine when it ports in San Francisco.”

“Steam may liberate ships,” Genji said, “but not our hearts. Like the sun and the moon, we are tied forever to the gravity of the sea.”

“Isn’t it the other way around?” Emily said. “Doesn’t the sea respond to the movements of the sun and moon?”

“For us it is the opposite,” Genji said, “and always will be.”

Heiko, Hanako, and Emily poured sake for the men. Then Genji, Hidé, and Stark poured sake for the women. They raised their cups together for the last time.

“May a bold tide bear you forth,” Genji said, looking straight into Heiko’s eyes, “and the tide of remembrance bring you home.”