Human for a Day (9781101552391) (23 page)

“That evening, Anchin struck the temple bell eleven times. But before he could strike the twelfth peal to accomplish the ritual, Kiyohime came. She had become an angry ghost, a
yurei
. Her body transformed into the shape of a huge serpent with only her face unchanged by her rage.

“Anchin hid beneath the sacred bell, but when Kiyohime could not drag him forth, she engulfed the bell in her coils. And so baleful was her fury that the bell turned white-hot and molten, incinerating Anchin within it.”

Alan stubbed out his cigarette in his empty tea cup and fumbled for another, surprised to discover he was down to his last one. Another surprise, the afternoon had faded to nighttime during the priest's narration, and they sat in shadowy near-darkness. The only illumination came from the main temple's lighting, bleeding in through the window.

Again anticipating him, Ryoseki flicked on a desk lamp. The wan light of its single bulb only made the shadows seem longer and the night darker.

“Dojoji was without a bell for a long while,” the priest said, “until a new one was cast and blessed in a purification ceremony of many weeks. But I have long believed that Anchin and Kiyohime's story is not yet done. Your presence here, Alan Brandt, confirms it.”

Alan frowned. “
My
presence?”

“The temple bell is part of your karma and compels your destiny. You are bound to it by the wheel of death and rebirth, beholden to debts incurred by a former existence.”

Alan leaned back and crossed his arms. “I don't believe in destiny or reincarnation.”

“Nevertheless, the voice of the temple bell sounds in your head.”

“And you think it's because I have to repay my karma.” Alan shrugged. “Believe whatever you like so long as I can have that bell.”

Ryoseki drained the dregs of his tea and stood. “Then it is time.”

Alan rose. “Time for what?”

The priest lit a candle lantern from behind his desk and tucked a linen-wrapped bundle into his sleeve. “Time for you to restore the balance of your karma. Or, if you prefer, time to inspect your prospective purchase before finalizing our transaction.” He beckoned for Alan to follow him into the night.

 

There were no electric lights in the
shōro
, and its thick timbers and winged roof admitted little of the main temple's illumination. The great bell within was a towering blackness. Ryoseki's lantern bobbed as he climbed the steps, awakening flickering shadows over the bronze patina.

“Are flashlights prohibited? It's a little hard to ‘inspect' anything by candlelight,” Alan grumbled.

“They are not prohibited,” Ryoseki said. “But modern lights and electricity deter spirits, and tonight we wish to invite them.”

Alan rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. Consider it inspected.”

“You have only examined the outside.”

“After that story, you don't seriously expect me to get inside it, do you?”

The
jūshoku
shrugged. “You are not here merely to buy a bell, Alan Brandt. You are seeking answers. I have shown you the text, but only you can read it.” He extended the lantern.

Alan took it, swearing under his breath, and ducked beneath the bell's rim. “Well, I don't see anything, answers or otherwise.” His voice echoed in the metal confines.

“Exactly.”

“What do you mean ‘exactly'? Is that one of those riddles that has no—?” Alan trailed off. “Hey, there's no clapper.”

“Temple bells are rung by means of a large wooden striker from without.” The priest's voice drifted to him, slightly muffled. “But this one has never had a striker. And as you can see, it has no internal clapper either. Last year marked the 1000th anniversary since Anchin suffered Kiyohime's wrath and still every effort to install a striker has failed—beams became rot-eaten, supports that give way, chains that always break. The bell is mute and always has been.”

“But I heard it.”

“You did. Two bells in your head instead of one.” Ryoseki shuffled closer. “And now all the players are assembled.”

The bell boomed, a single, crashing note.

Alan dropped the lantern and clamped his hands over his ears. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. He could still hear it, feel it, thrumming deep in his bones.

“I am finishing the ritual begun by Anchin a thousand years ago. Here, take this.” Ryoseki set a slender shape down—the linen-wrapped something now unwrapped—and toed it beneath the bell's edge. It rasped along the
shōro
'
s
floor, steel on stone.

Alan stared at the knife by his foot. Curved and long as his forearm, it was an ancient samurai's weapon. The hilt was stained and faded from time and use, but the edge was still bright.

Still bright? Alan's breath caught. The lantern had gone out when he dropped it, but he could see. Light glimmered behind him, steadier than any flame. And it was moving closer, swelling his shadow against the bell's curved darkness.

Alan lunged for the knife. Grabbing it, he spun around.

“Father would disown me if he knew. But I don't care. I don't even care if he kills me for loving you, Anchin. The only thing I fear is you forgetting me and leaving me bereft and alone.”

“Kiyo, I will love you always and forever. I promise I will come back to you. We will marry and live together like happy mice, quietly and simply.”

Her words of love and his cruel lies. Broken promises and shame. Worse, despite his duplicity, she still pined for him, still loved him.

Keen rage and bitter desire, an impossible, torturesome duality. Her heart was a bleeding conflagration, burning without surcease. The
kaiken
opened her, releasing the fire, spilling it out in a boiling fountain.

But it wasn't enough. She still burned.

 

Alan reeled, catching himself on the curved bronze at his back. Suspended between juxtaposed images of American businessman and Japanese princess, memories of a distant past overlaid more recent recollections. The
kaiken
in his hand, the edge of it slicing his flesh, the crimson spray shockingly red in his mind's eye. He touched his throat, expecting to find ravaged tissue and a drench of heat, was surprised not to.

“Beloved, at last.”

Alan raised his head. Reflected in the unshined bronze, an apparition of a young man regarded him, faintly translucent and cloaked in a nimbus of gold. Anchin.

“I waited for you.” Kiyohime's words billowed black and hot from Alan's mouth, smoky dragon's breath in lieu of tobacco. “You never came.” It was too much for Alan to accept, kinesthetic impressions of a monstrous serpent spitting fire that was also a woman. Senses engulfed and overwhelmed, the tousled strands of Alan submerged, and Kiyohime darted forward.

Anchin's ghostly form reached out. “Forgive me. Fate was unkind. I meant to come.”

Kiyohime ignored the proffered hand. “Easy to say now, when our time is past and all that remains is a mournful tale.”

Anchin's hand fell away. “Is this truly what you want? To be locked together in this cycle of suffering?”

An ember kindled in her chest. She knew this fire, knew how it must end. Again. “Why not?” she demanded. “If this is all of you I will ever have, if this is all you will give me, why should I let you go?”

Anchin's eyes fixed on her, still pools of sorrow. “Your rage is a demon that consumes us both. I would free you from it, even if you don't wish the same for me. What if I give myself to this demon willingly, will that appease you? Will that sate it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I will gladly surrender myself to be devoured and razed to nothingness if it will end your spirit's torment.”

Kiyohime sneered. “Nothingness? Isn't oblivion what all good little
soryos
yearn for?”

“You misunderstand. I am offering you my eternal spirit to consume. Destroy it and I will never know nirvana or enlightenment. I will be nothing, negated.”

Fury churned in her, leaping with greed. She bared his teeth—part grin, part grimace. “In that case, I accept.”

Anchin bowed his head. The apparition shrank, falling into itself—translucent features and ghostly limbs lost in a contracting orb. It continued to diminish, flattening into a disc, then a slender needle. But although it decreased in size, its brilliance remained undimmed.

The bell tolled, familiar and unrelenting, rising to a deafening crescendo as the needle flared zinc-white.

 

Light receded, the white brand becoming the pale, rose-fawn rays of dawn.

Kiyohime observed the morning with detachment, an impartial observer. Without needing to see the stark walls of a novice's cubicle or feel the rough wool of priestly robes, she knew the eyes belonged to Anchin, her consciousness now riding in his body.

The bell's clamor had paled too, sounding as though from a distance. And in similarly muted tones, Anchin's voice jangled in her head: “This is the day of my immolation. When night falls, your
yurei
will find me. All you must do is join it, two flames into one, and when you sunder me to ashes, my spirit as well as my body will be consumed.”

“That is all good and well,” Kiyohime said. “But it is only sunrise. Why must I wait for a whole day's passage before I may feast?”

“Did you not want to savor my suffering? Won't it be over too quickly otherwise, this opportunity to relish my anguish?”

“There is savoring and there is tedious delay. I am not interested in the latter.”

“Then only bid ‘quicker,' and time will dash forward.”

“Fine. Qui—” Kiyohime's impatience was interrupted by the entrance of an old priest. Those lined features, that portly figure. She remembered him.

“Anchin, you must eat something.” Soryo Tomozo frowned at the untouched bowl of rice. “And by the haggard look of you, you haven't slept either.”

Anchin acknowledged the other man's presence with a listless glance before resuming his silent litany of prayer.

Tomozo padded in and kneeled beside Anchin. “My son, there is such a thing as too much austerity.”

“Sensei, I am grateful for your concern,” Anchin mumbled, “but I wish to be alone.” His voice was rough and thick, absent even a suggestion of bell tones.

“I have left you alone, and look at you, one foot already in the yellow waters of the afterlife.” Tomozo exhaled, shoulders sagging. “Even fools may realize truth upon reflection and meditation, and this old fool has had a lifetime of reflection in which to recognize his many faults: a proclivity for drink and indolence, and a cowardly disposition. But I am not so much a coward as to allow you to destroy yourself with guilt and self-recrimination when by rights, the fault and responsibility is mine. I am to blame for Kiyohime's death.”

Anchin looked up at that. “What do you mean?”

Tomozo wrung his hands. “I connived to keep you apart, always finding some excuse to put you off when you suggested going to her.”

“Why?”

“I told myself that it was in your best interests. After all, you were due to take your vows and she was a highborn young lady. Such creatures are known to be frivolous and fickle. But really, I was afraid. The
daimyo
is a powerful man with a reputation for lopping off the heads of those who displease him, and I feared he would hold me responsible for entangling his daughter with a penniless priest.”

Anchin was silent for a long while. “Thank you for your honesty, but it changes nothing,” he said at last. “It was my neglect that caused her to despair. The worth of a man lies in his actions, and all I gave her were words.”

Tomozo reached into his sleeve and pulled out two bundles of paper secured with string. “My inventory of sins is not done. These are the missives you entrusted me to convey to the lady, undelivered. And these are the ones she sent that I withheld from you.”

Anchin accepted the two packets. “She didn't even have my words to reassure her?”

“My life is not long enough for me to atone for my misdeeds. I am truly, profoundly sorry.”

Anchin said nothing, only gazed at the sealed, unread pages in his hands.

“Tonight I will sound the temple bell in order to entreat Kiyohime's spirit for forgiveness,” Tomozo said. “Please, it would mean much if you came and prayed with me.”

Anchin gave the barest nod, and the old priest rose to go.

After Tomozo departed, Anchin unbound the cache of Kiyohime's letters and selected one. It was tied with a red ribbon, and a single cherry blossom fell out when he opened it. The petals were withered and dry, but they retained a wisp of fragrance, delicate and sweet.