Читать книгу Made In Japan - S. Parks J. - Страница 21

Tako had given Hana the directions for the temple where the memorial service was to be held. He had not, thankfully, offered to take them. She knew that waiting for Jess to return was pointless and she left the homestay in good time to take a short train ride, planning to walk beyond the residential area before it started.

By the time she found the site on a wooded hill, the black jersey wrap skirt she had borrowed from Jess was clinging to her legs. The air had changed. In silence the grey, tiled rooves of the temple swept up towards birds of prey circling in deep thermals of blue. Under mottled pine shade she walked towards the red torii gate, and it felt as if, since leaving the homestay, she had travelled to another country, in the tranquility of the gardens.

She would not have chosen this day as a first visit to the temple. It must, she guessed, be where the local teahouse was sited and, though it was an inauspicious day to do so, she would take time to find the small wooden building, after the ceremony. She walked beneath the torii to fall behind the guests.

Beyond the torii gates was a couple, old enough to be walking towards their own goodbyes, They were among the few individuals left from Ukai’s life-scape for whom his passing wrote off their indebtedness or those who celebrated his death as marking an end to his potential to intimidate. Some had profited from his insistence on minimum disclosures and creative accounting and some were merely of such advanced years that they had forgotten who he really was but they had been garnered to attend through custom to pay their respects. It was a small turnout for the man who once owned real estate worth the city of Shanghai and Beijing put together.

Hana made her way to the main building, until the heavy scent of incense bore down on the clear air.

The body lay in an elevated cask in front of the altar, and on either side sat Ukai’s immediate family, Noru and her son Tako, flanked by a sparse number of elderly guests. Hana found them a rough lot, more than one bore a facial scar. It was not high society and it certainly put Tako into context.

Beyond the body in the depths of the shadowy interior, gold leaf flickered across the offerings like fish scales, the light coming to rest for a moment on the cheeks of the serene Buddha. Out on the airless terrace, Hana chose to kneel in empty space on one of a pair of zabuton cushions, beside an elderly lady with dyed black hair. The powdered woman wore a light, summer, gauze kimono, coloured like raspberry fool.

In the heavy heat all Hana’s discomfort focused on her dislike for this misshapen jacket deforming the elderly woman. She watched as a trickle of sweat released a dark line of temporary hair dye from her temple. A triangle of white handkerchief trimmed with lace arrested the falling beads at the pressure of her lined hands. The woman interrupted her gaze and introduced herself,

‘Saito-san.’

Hana bowed her head in return.

Hana was thankful she could not see the body of the old man. Trails of curling smoke from incense sticks below the casket, and the waxy blooms of lime green chrysanthemums, began to add to her nausea. As the monk began chanting mantras, Noru and the other guests added their voices.

Saito-san rose uneasily to add another quill of incense to the ashes in the copper bowl and returned to her cushion. Hana became nervous that she too would be expected to take part and that she too should make some offering. The sweat ran behind her knees and, during the quiet hypnotic drone of the priest, she followed the rigorous curve of the mighty dragon across the beam beneath the eaves; like the reputation of the master builder who had raised it, fading in strength with the peeling paint.

Jess still had not appeared and Hana worried that the square void of cushion beside her yawned like an insult. But, as she’d said, who was Ukai to them? They hardly knew him and the ceremony was so unfamiliar it belonged to another world. As the monk rang the bell it sounded like a human voice. A feeling akin to heat exhaustion took hold and she forgot how she found herself sitting in the small gathering amid the haze of stifled and conflicting emotions around her. After more prayers had been said the mourners began to rise individually, like random seeds on the air, as the incense was left to drift over and purify the body.

A man’s shoes, black, pointed and highly polished, passed closely, as she knelt. Iwata paced over to speak with the priest, who addressed him,

‘Iwata-san.’

Iwata-san bowed ‘Kare wa konakatta?’

‘Arimasen,’ the priest replied.

Hana listened to them but couldn’t make out much. He’s not here?

She understood very little – they had expected another guest? She watched Saito-san get up with difficulty and peck, in two-toed wooden geta, towards the priest and the shiny-shoed man with matching hair oil.

‘Kare wa doko ni imasu ka?’ she asked.

Hana heard – ‘And where is he?’

Saito-san bowed reverentially over her heavy obi.

‘Mochizuki wa Arimasen.’ Who ? Hana wondered was Mochizuki?

The small party was led to the back of the traditional buildings by the priest who paused and smiled at her.

‘Welcome. I am Hakuin, abbot here. ‘

She might have taken his prolonged look as recognition, since he hesitated as though he had a great deal more to say. But he was distracted and his eyes left her to follow a tall woman in the clean-cut Shimada jacket in the distance. Was it Miho? Hana couldn’t be sure as her silvered bob was hidden behind a veil. She had become a totem for the other guests who greeted and circled her as if they participated in a Japanese folk dance, and so Hana kept her distance.

Joining the trail of wry strangers retiring to the tatami room, she began to feel faint. They were a small, ageing crowd and many, clinging to the past in traditional dress, cooing over the tall, elegant woman. Hana couldn’t make out any of their exchange. Who were these strangers to her?

Iwata San acknowledged Saito, in the manner of one well-known to the other but fallen recent strangers.

They all asked after the Mochizuki, as if his absence would fill a vacuum.

A tentative woman in black approached Miho, her veil adding another layer of separation between them. Her caution was well chosen, as her reception remained cold and barely acknowledged. It was easy to read their lack of warmth for each another and the strange absence of connection among any of them.

She thought for a moment that the woman she took to be Miho had seen her. Falling in with the milling group, drifting with as much purpose as the eddying incense, she would eventually reach her beside the door. But the woman appeared to be skirting the line to find an alternative entrance.

Wordlessly ushered in by Tako, the guests filed inside, laying crisp white envelopes, tied with elaborate black knots, on a dish in the hall; money shrouded in elegance. With nothing to give, Hana clutched her wrist and bowed gently when it fell to her, excusing her own breach of etiquette. As the waves of nausea overcame her, she left the assembly to stand under the trees in the lifeless air.

The teahouse might just lie beside cool waters further into the grounds, and in the wilting heat she decided she should leave the strangers and try to find it.

Just as she was going, Noru approached her, asking if she would come to eat with them.

She felt obliged to follow and there was the consolation that she might find Miho to talk to, but when she joined the mourners the woman in the veil had gone.