The Hamlet Paradigm

By Gemma Nishiyama

“If music be the food of love, play on…..”

For Takeshi

Notes:

The quotation from Giordano Bruno’s Gli Heroici Furori in Chapter 18 is from the following book, which is the public domain:Bruno, Giordano. 1584. The Heroic Enthusiasts. (Gli Eroici Furori) An Ethical Poem, Part the Second. London: Bernatd Quartritch. 1889 (translated by L. Williams). (Nabu Public Domain Reprints)

The quotation from the title page of Love’s Martyr in Chapter 18 is from:

Wikipedia “Robert Chester, poet” http://en . wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Chester_(poet) . Retrieced January 24, 2014.

The quotation about Robert Chester and Torquato Caeliano is from:

Wikipedia “Robert Chester, poet” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Chester_(poet), retrieved January 24, 2014.

The name ‘Torquato’ was actually searched by the author at:

http://www.babynamespedia.com/meaning/Torquato. retrieved January 24, 2014.

The word “torquis” was also actually searched by the author at:http://www.latin-dictionary.net/definition/37354/torquis-torquis, retrieved January 24, 2014.

The word “cael” was searched by the author at:

http://latinlookup.com/word/7283/cael, retrieved January 24, 2014.

In Chapter 19, The Phoenix and the Turtle was retrieved from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phoenix_and_the_Turtle. Retrieved January 24, 2014.

The plot of the Noh play in Chapter 22 is paraphrased from http://www.the-noh.com/en/world/index.html

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or

persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental. If real places and

people are mentioned, they are only being used in a fictional way.

Copyright © 2014 by Marianne Kimura

Chapter 1

Perhaps, I thought, it was the Greek myths I was reading aloud for Yuuki, who

was then just seven, before bed.

We read all the myths, even the hard-to-explain ones, for example those where

women were carried off, Europa and the Bull, Persephone and Hades, or those

where supernatural men invaded the lives of ordinary women, like the story of

Cupid and Psyche. I didn’t say exactly what else was implied to be going on

between the couples. I just said “carried off”. Yuuki didn’t seem to think anything

was strange about it. Maybe to him it seemed like a game or a sport.

Later, in my own dreams, I would find myself being carried off too, like Europa

or Persephone. The dreams were very vivid and not dream-like series of events,

but more like real occurrences. At first I thought it was just for sex. .

The first time it happened, I dreamed a crane was standing beside my futon. It

was almost dawn and it seemed to me that I could make out his angular shape,

somehow bashful yet masterly in the near darkness. His wings were black and

white, and I knew it was a male, and while I sat up in surprise, he spread his huge

wings over me and, painlessly, I shrank many sizes until I fit easily inside his beak.

He scooped me up easily, as though I were a live trout or a frog, and then he

stalked over to the paper shoji doors, which were open to the hallway. The hallway

has a pair of glass doors, which were open since it was summer. The screen doors

seemed to baffle him, however. But he used his long and strong beak to pry one

open; I watched from inside this beak.

For some reason, I was cheering him on.

He didn’t bother to step down into the garden, but took one leap and bounded

up into the sky. I felt the same powerful sense of thrust as when an airplane I am

riding in curves up, up, into the clouds.

His wings rose and fell; I could hear his heartbeat; I felt his blood surging

around his body, and the slight moisture in his mouth.

I heard whooshing sounds as the air fell away beneath us, or maybe it was the

wind.

I must have fallen asleep; the rhythmical motion made me relax. I became part

of the crane; my own sense of being melted a little and I felt happily lost together

with him, or in him, rather.

When I woke up I thought right away that I would be back in my futon in the

little old house, with Yuuki curled up peacefully asleep in the next tatami room, on

the other side of the husuma doors.

But I was in a very different place. It was an old wooden theater, and we were

on the stage. The theater seemed to be round. A hole in the ceiling let the dusky

sky in. A few stars and the moon glimmered dimly and a little fine and glinting

powdery snow was blowing in lightly through the ceiling, too.

I didn’t see any electric lights nearby. The whole theater was in semi-darkness,

lit only by the moon.

I was on a strange bed I had never seen before. It was hard, as if it were stuffed

with straw or horsehair.

A stranger dressed in black and white, almost like a harlequin, stepped out

from behind a nearby screen. I knew it was him, the man who had been disguised

as a crane. I knew he wasn’t a man, not really, not a human being with a material

body like mine. There was something bright or glimmering about him, so that I

could hardly focus on him, my eyes danced away from his face and there was a

puzzling, swirling, moving quality to his form. Was the powdery snow getting in my

way or was there another explanation?

When a god came to ravish Europa or Psyche, the women couldn’t refuse, and

now that a singular spirit had somehow made up his mind to bring me to a private

place and reveal himself to me in a similar fashion, I was also powerless to refuse.

Nor did I want to, to be honest. Also, I couldn’t help but be desperately curious

about his intentions and how he planned to carry them out.

Soon he had come onto the bed. I stayed very still, thinking this was a

fascinating experience; with these kinds of strange, wonderful and unexpected

moments, actually, it is best to just trust your instincts and not give away too

much of yourself.

No time was wasted. It began. At first, I was still myself and I still knew my

name, my age, and other things like that. My identity was still intact, but the

rhythm and the movement was too swirling, too encompassing, too excellent, too

deep, and too fantastical to resist and soon, I had begun to forget many basic

things I had learned a long time ago. I stopped being me, in other words, and I

became a flame, a bug, a newt, a spider, a drugged thing, a viper, a cat, a tree and

whatever else I actually wasn’t. And still he wouldn’t let me go. The feeling was

intense, and it worried me for an instant, but I saw, very intricately and brightly,

that this wasn’t so very different from what I was used to experiencing with Haruki.

There was a musical quality to it all, a rhythm and the pleasurable sense of

movement. I felt dissolved in this music, and then, very like a song, with a certain

flourish, it was over.

Time, after all an irresistible force, had released me from this spirit. He stood up

in the darkness and passed his hand over a candle standing on a table nearby and

a flame appeared.

A little snow was still blowing around us. In the candle light, it was rather

beautiful. It glimmered and then lightly settled on the floor and melted, leaving a

wet stain, as on a road.

He sat down on the side of the bed and now I found that I could focus more

easily on his features, which had been so puzzling and obscure before. He looked

like a quiet and studious person, with a rather focused expression and dark

features. His hair was long, near his shoulders, and curly and loose. He wore, in his

left ear, a small but thick golden hoop earring; it must have stirred something in

me. Gold has a glow unlike any other metal.

“Your earring----“, I said, “It shines so---.”

“I would be happy if you would accept it”, he said, quickly moving his hand to

take it off. He placed it in my palm. It was so heavy; it was definitely a man’s

earring, not for me.

“No”, I said, “I can’t wear it. It’s too heavy.”

“Let’s decide later what to do with it,” he said, placing it on the table beside us.

There was an awkward silence. Or was it just me who was feeling awkward? I

decided that talking to a spirit was somehow different from talking to a human.

“The sky is very beautiful from here,“ I said. “I could stay here forever just

watching it.”

“But you are married, after all. What would your husband say if you stayed

here?”

“Oh him!” I said moodily. “Haruki is always only with his books and telescopes.

He stays up somewhere near Tokyo. It’s far from Kiyama, where I live”

He laughed. I realized then that I did not know his name. I was not worried

about Haruki, with whom, actually I am on very good, even passionate and

romantic, terms, though we did not often meet anymore. Through the veil of this

dream, I perceived that Haruki and this man belonged to different dimensions and

that infidelity was not possible. It was a wonderful and freeing feeling.

“What is your name, by the way?” I asked, somewhat shyly, “or, I mean to say,

if you can’t tell me your real name, then what should I call you?”

“Call me Orsino”, he said, rather carelessly, looking down, and not at me.

“Orsino”, I said slowly, “what a strange name!”

“Or is gold in French, plus ‘in’ and ‘O’. The extra “s” is just for flighty

decoration; maybe it stands for strange or maybe for the stars, sidereal, starlings

or stillness.” He looked up through the ceiling to the sky.

“Or the snow,” I said, enjoying the game. But, actually, the snow had already

almost stopped by then.

He picked up the gold earring and fingered it.

“Are you sure you don’t want it?” he asked, looking sad.

“I would be happy to accept it,” I said; now I was charmed. I didn’t have to

wear it, after all. He dropped it into my hand and I held it in my palm. He didn’t

know my name, though, and he had already given me a ring. It was strange.

Seeking to rectify the situation, I said, hastily, “It is very nice to meet you. My

name is------“

“----Mari”, he said, with a smile..

“But how do you know my name? And, by the way, where are we? Are we still

in Japan?”

“I know a little, but not very much, about you. But I do know your name. And

no, we are not exactly in Japan anymore, or anywhere in your regular, nicely-

formed world. We are just in a theater, as you can see.”

Where was I, actually? I wanted to ask, but I thought he probably wouldn’t tell

me, nor would I understand the explanation even if he did.

“Well, then, have you ever been to Japan?” I asked.

“Yes, perhaps, in a way.”

“You speak in riddles and nonsense. You seem to know everything, but you

reveal little.”

“What I have to reveal---well, it may be said that one day it will just reveal

itself. But, never mind that. What I wanted to say is that I’d like to bring you here

on occasion, if you don’t mind, if it is all right with you. To, ummm….commune with

you a bit. Strange as it may seem, you and me together, really from two separate

zones of existence, as you probably have guessed by now.”

I felt remarkably elated to hear this, for I liked him so much and I wanted to see

him again too. He could be similar to a yokai, I gathered, a folkish spirit. Like a fox

or an inari, like a crane, like a mountain temple ghost. And I had, most luckily,

landed up in a kind of spirit spot. Or wherever I was.

I could not complain, certainly.

From then on, I was to have two husbands, a human mortal one, Haruki, a

nerdy but clever astronomer and my fetch, or spirit, husband with his odd name,

Orsino, who came to me only in my dreams. Once in a while.

He tended to show up whenever I was tired or lonely or feeling sad. He lifted

my spirits and for days afterward, I was energized and happy.

I meant for Haruki never to meet my spirit husband, and I never mentioned him

to Haruki. I was extremely careful and discreet, always.

But one day, contrary to all of my best intentions, the two worlds, the spirit

world of Orsino and the real material world of Haruki, collided.

This is my strange story.

Chapter 2

My husband, Haruki, and I used to live together in Kiyama, a little town that

everyone says is quaint, but one day, about eight years ago, the call from a major

public research university in the Tokyo area came. Haruki was thrilled to be able to

leave small Kiyama University, where he felt that fetters bound him and prevented

him from completing all the amazing astronomical research he dreamed of.

I, on the other hand, had finally gotten a secure job, a job I had wanted very

much, teaching English at a small private high school near our house. Nami, our

daughter, was just about to start junior high school and she had many friends here.

I had planted basil and roses in the garden. I was close friends with the family who

owned our little rented house, especially the 83-year old head of the family, Mrs.

Shimogawa. A river with a line of cherry trees along it was a few meters away from

our house and I watched the seasons change, year by year, as I walked to work or

bicycled to the shops. My life here was perfect and I didn’t want it to change.

When Haruki had proudly divulged the news of his job offer one evening, I had

only started to sob. He had looked surprised by my reaction, but after several

minutes of trying to explain how wonderful the new job would be for his research,

he had stopped talking and looked thoughtfully at me. Then, kindly, he had said,

“You and Nami don’t have to come with me, you know.”

I immediately stopped crying.

“Really? You don’t mind?”

I lifted up my wet, red face, trying hard not to look too overjoyed.

“Well, Nami would miss her friends, and you just started a good job here.

Besides, I’ll be quite busy every day. I’ll be working very hard, you know.”

I knew him well enough to know it was very true.

Haruki had moved north the next spring, but he visited us regularly for holidays

and sometimes I would take a train and meet him in Kyoto, which was about

halfway for both of us. Maybe because we met like passionate lovers again in

hotels, we hadn’t been careful, and Yuuki had been conceived accidentally.

Once, too, I had visited him up in his town, which was called Kubatsu. I had

brought baby Yuuki along in his stroller. I took him for a walk along a huge road

lined with many impressive and huge cement research buildings and parking lots.

After a few minutes, we had turned back.

When Nami was 18, she had shocked everyone except Yuuki, who was only 4

and too young to understand, by announcing that she was postponing college to

go and work on the Maldives teaching scuba diving at a resort for a couple of

years. She was tired of the cement buildings here, the boring, traffic-ridden roads,

the whole industrialized atmosphere, she said.

“But we are surrounded by beautiful green mountains!” I had said in protest.

“Yes, I know that. But anyway, I like the ocean better and I’m bored here. I want

something different.”

Nami, whose name means “waves” was named after the ocean, and the ocean

was indeed her favorite place just as the sky was Haruki’s favorite. Haruki spent so

much of his time scanning, studying, and measuring the sky or the beautiful

glowing objects he saw there that I sometimes wondered how he managed to walk

from one place to another without tripping over. Both Haruki and Nami were

strong-headed and passionate, Nami for the ocean, Haruki for the sky. Haruki and I

knew that it was therefore useless to argue with Nami once she had made her

mind up to go to a place near the ocean and live there.

“She’s just like you”, I said to my husband after all the arrangements had been

completed and Nami’s airline ticket had been purchased.

“This is all totally your fault!” I added, “it’s your genes! Both of you are just

impossible to argue with! You’re incredibly stubborn and never listen to reason!”

Haruki had merely smiled.

Chapter 3

Life was perfect; but suddenly everything changed.

I finished teaching the final class of the day; it was a Thursday, and as I walked

back to the room where all the teachers each had a desk, I switched on my cell

phone. A text message from Haruki was waiting for me: “Don’t go home”, I read,

“a serious problem has come up!”

This was so ridiculous, I decided. It must be a bad joke, or a prank. Even so, a

little dagger of fear pierced me and made me shiver. A million thoughts and

possibilities started tumbling around in my brain. I could feel my heart beating as I

dodged into an empty classroom, shut the door and headed over to the window,

where I stood next to an arrangement of Bunsen burners on a long counter. I found

myself leaning shakily against this counter as I dialed Haruki’s cell number. He

answered immediately. I could hear the rapid, high-pitched sound of the music that

was played at train stations to signal that the train doors are open. He spoke in a

low voice, quickly and urgently.

“Mari, listen, something terrible has happened here. I’m on my way down there

now, to explain, and I don’t think either one of us is safe. They know your address

and they know I may go there, so they may be watching the house.”

The music from the train doors being opened stopped. He was on a train, but

the Shinkansen did not have that tinny, jazzy, tuneful music. The Shinkansen has

rapid-fire ringing sounds to show the doors are open. Why was he on a local train?

If he were taking local trains, switching lines again and again, it would take 30

hours or more to get here.

He must have lost his mind.

“Are you completely crazy?” I almost yelled, “Haruki, get psychological

counseling or help! As soon as possible! On a local train in Shizuoka, and calling

me like this! This is stress, this is overwork, it’s karoshi. Stop, just stop trying to

frighten me. I don’t need this! I have enough to worry about here practically being

a single mother and all, managing everything on my own!”

“Listen”, he said calmly, “check Yahoo. Search the name Hideo Fukuzawa. Then

call me right back.”

Angrily, I went down the stairs. I made a big effort, which I think was

successful, to appear completely normal.

I got to my desk and switched on my laptop, then searched the name----I had

to think for a second-----to recall it. Hideo, but not Furukawa, not Fukugawa,

Fukuzawa.

I gasped as the screen refreshed and the information came up.

A few lines only, nothing that had made the national headlines.

He had died after falling off the balcony of his apartment. He had lived on the

10th floor. He had been a scientist at the same university, in the same department,

as Haruki. He had graduated from Kyoto University with the highest honors, and

gotten a Ph.D there too in only 4 years. He had published many articles and his

research accomplishments were extensive. The police were investigating his death

and murder had not been ruled out, and suicide had not been ruled out either.

Some of the other professors in his department were being questioned. No names

were given, of course, and no details. It was a dry summary.

I wanted to shriek or scream, but, of course, I couldn’t. I was surrounded by

other teachers at their desks. Mr. Takemoto, a math teacher and sports coach,

nearby, peered at his screen and remarked, “it looks like rain tomorrow, so I’m

worried about the soccer match!”

Numbly and on the verge of tears, I said, “I hope it will be sunny too.”

I walked quickly back to the empty classroom laboratory, although by now all

the classrooms were empty since school was over for the day.

This time I sat down in a chair near the window.

I was determined to be calm. We had been married a long time, a bit over 20

years, and I trusted and loved Haruki. It was impossible to imagine him doing

anything like pushing someone off a balcony.

I dialed his number again and he answered immediately again.

“Did you check it?”

“Yes. What is going on?”

“The story will have to wait until I see you. But trust me, don’t go home. The

police are not the problem, although they probably are looking for me as well, and

that’s why I’m not taking the Shinkansen. Others are involved, and they are the

ones to worry about.”

“How do they know where I live, though?”

“Again, I can’t tell you the whole story here, in the train. I can only tell you that

they do know, and it’s certain. By the way, I’m near Mount Fuji, in Shizuoka, at the

moment.”

“Oh.”

I felt a sense of bleakness, hopelessness and fear. I didn’t want to talk or move.

I thought about my beautiful little rental house surrounded by lovely, kind

neighbors, and near a rambling river. Would I ever see it again? What would

happen to my life from now?

“Where is Yuuki right now?” Haruki asked and his voice seemed to come from

far away.

“He is at the after-school program in the building next to the school that he

always goes to. I usually pick him up a little before 6.”

“Get him and then go and get some money at the bank ATM, and then go and

stay in a hotel in Yuda Onsen and use a fake name and don’t use a credit card

there.”

“What should I tell the school?”

“It doesn’t matter. The weekend is coming up, so we have a few days after

tomorrow. It may be cleared up by then. Or tell them anything you like. After this is

over, we’ll explain everything. I promise I’ll help you.”

“After this is all cleared up? How do we do that?”

“It’s another thing I’ll have to tell you later. It’s the whole reason I’m doing this,

to clear everything up. The death of Hideo Fukuzawa is not the reason I’m running

away, of course, I’m innocent and the police could probably figure that out right

away. There is another reason.”

“All these riddles and mysteries! I don’t understand anything!”

“Just do as I say. We have a good chance to succeed. Text me when you get to

the hotel. And just stay there.”

“But wait! What about Yuuki’s school?”

“It’s another thing that can’t be helped. I don’t think we’ll be gone that long. I

just need a little while, and I’m working on a plan, then I think it will be O.K. for us

to resume our ordinary lives again. I’ll explain it all later.”

I remembered someone else. Our Abyssinian Sam, a crazy little cat with an

antic disposition.

“Sam can’t stay there alone! He’ll die!”

“Okay, first get him and bring him to the vet and then get Yuuki.”

“Ryokai desu.” No problem.

But be careful. If you see anyone around, leave quickly. They don’t know what

you look like, probably.”

“Be careful, O.K.?” he said once more, hanging up.

My phone, just a cheap model, was almost at zero battery power after this long

conversation. I hung up and, so no one would be able to guess how worried I really

was, tried to be nonchalant in my demeanor as I went back to my desk.

Chapter 4

Everything seemed like it was going to work out, I told myself. There was a

simple misunderstanding somewhere that had to be fixed----Haruki just needed

time----and then we would go back to our ordinary lives. Feeling a bit more relaxed,

I got my things together and casually explained to Ms. Koga, the head of the

English Department, that I would have to leave a little early because of an

appointment with Yuuki’s teacher.

My house was a 10 minute walk from the school. Mentally, I prepared a list of

things to take care of: Sam had to go into his carrier and I’d have to phone the vet

then bike over there, return and get my cell phone charger and a few clothes. It

would be simple.

I wanted to talk to Mrs. Shimogawa and tell her we’d be gone for a few days

too.

The house looked perfectly normal when I arrived home and everything went

smoothly. Sam wound his lean body around my legs and I felt bad about putting

him in the pet carrier. I put him and some cat food in the bicycle baskets and

wound the cell phone charger cord up and dropped it into my purse so I wouldn’t

forget it later.

This little town, Kiyama, which was a settled town long before there were cars,

is so compact that it isn’t difficult to arrange one’s life so that a bicycle or the bus

is always adequate. I had chosen a clinic that was just 15 minutes away by bicycle.

Telling the vet that Sam would be there for one week, I apologized for not bringing

enough cat food.

Our house, built about 100 years ago, is one of a group of four houses standing

in a little group and owned by the Shimogawas, who live in the biggest one and

rent out the others. Ours is set back a bit behind another one. Returning home, I

slowed down to turn into the path that borders on Mrs. Shimogawa’s garden and

house. But, looking toward our front door beyond this garden, I suddenly noticed

two men in dark suits standing at the front door. These sharply-dressed men

looked all wrong for Kiyama. Instinctively I pulled the bicycle out of the turn and

kept going straight along the road bordering the river instead, as fast as I could.

Bad news.

Haruki had been right.

And if the men had spotted me, they would soon be looking on all the tiny

twisting roads around here for me. I turned a corner and turned another corner into

the minute parking lot of the community center and waited to see if they were

coming.

After 5 minutes of waiting without seeing them again, I decided to leave my

bicycle at the community center and walk as quickly as possible to pick up Yuuki at

the school. It was only a 10-minute walk and the men, if they were looking for me,

would most likely be looking for someone on a bicycle. Besides, the community

center parking was a good place to leave the bicycle for a while.

Late October days are surprisingly short, and it was starting to get dark. I took

off my sun hat to give a different basic impression of myself than the one the men

might have gotten as I had veered away on my bicycle. The approaching night

gave me a sense of security, but, ticking over all the possibilities in my mind, I

wondered if these men knew about Yuuki too, and realized where he might be.

They had known my address, and they probably knew my name. There were so

many bureaucratic details on everyone, stored here and there, not openly

accessible but accessible to those who had clearance. Obviously, the problem,

whatever it was, was linked to his work, and there were addresses of all his family

members in the computers of the university. Haruki had seemed to imply that

people with clearance were the ones after him. But who were they, and why?

I hurried as fast as I could, and, on the way, I used my cellphone to call a taxi to

come to the building of the after-school program. Inside the brightly lit room, Yuuki

was alone, the last one left. He was watching the end of an episode of Detective

Conan. Kogoro Mouri, the detective who perpetually fails to solve the case but

always gets the credit since the true detective is a 7 year old boy named Conan

whose real identity must remain hidden, was running down the steps of an old

deserted temple in the mountains. An evil hooded figure, a ghost-like wraith of

some sort, was chasing him as fall leaves blew around dramatically in the evening

air. Kogoro Mouri was screaming as he ran and his hair, in classic anime style, was

standing on end. Yuuki turned to see me.

“Aww, mom, just 5 more minutes!”

“Sorry, no, get your bag.”

Yuuki never really made a fuss about anything; he was a quiet and studious boy

and he got his backpack and we said good-bye to the teacher and left.

The taxi was waiting in the alley when we emerged from the small building.

“A taxi?” Yuuki asked.

“Yes, today we have to go to a hotel, not home”.

The cabdriver looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to tell him the

destination.

“Oh, yes”, I said, thinking as fast as I could. “The---uh---Umedaya Hotel in Yuda

Onsen”.

The cab pulled away and I twisted around in my seat to scan the darkening

alley behind us. Were the two men back there somewhere? If I looked hard enough

through the dimness through the back window, would I be able to see them?

Yuuki did not know it, and I was not about to tell him, but at this moment, he

was living in a real scene out of a Detective Conan episode.

“What are you looking at, Mom?” asked Yuuki.

“Oh, nothing!” I said with as much conviction as I could manage.

The taxi got to the end of the alley and turned onto the main road, where it

sped up. Leaning back with relief in the cab I caught sight of two figures, the two

men, walking on the sidewalk quickly toward the alley where we had just come

from. I slid down in my seat a bit and found myself holding my breath.

“What are you doing, mom?” asked Yuuki, since I had put my arm across his

chest to force him to lean back in his seat, away from the window. “You’re acting

so weird.”

“I’ll explain later”, I said, my voice sounding small and thin. I was picturing the

hooded wraith pursuing Kogoro Mouri down the steps of a deserted temple.

Was that what lay in our future?

Chapter 5

We arrived at the hotel and I realized that I had forgotten to get money from the

ATM. Well, I could go out in the morning. At least I had 20,000 yen in my purse. We

ate the huge dinner that usually comes with a room at a proper onsen hotel, and I

explained that daddy was waiting for us so we had to stay in this hotel.

“It’s a kind of a game,” I said, trying to sound like it was supposed to be fun.

“But we could just stay in our house and daddy could visit us there like he

always does.”

“Well, not this time. But don’t worry, because soon the game will be over and

you can go back to school.”

At 10 o’clock, my cell phone rang. Yuuki was already asleep. We hadn’t bothered

to go to the hot springs bath downstairs.

“Is everything O.K.?” Haruki asked.

“There were some men at the house, but I wasn’t home, I was about to turn in to

the little path leading up to the house, but when I saw them waiting there, I

swerved and got away. I’m not sure if they saw me, or how well. But I had already

brought Sam to the vet, at least. Then I picked up Yuuki and we’re staying at the

Umedaya now. Where are you?”

“Nagoya. The local trains are a lot slower than I realized, plus most of them will

stop running in a few hours, so I’m staying in a cheap hotel. I won’t go down to

Kiyama, after all. I thought of a better idea. Let’s meet in Mie instead tomorrow. I’ll

take the first express train out at 5am.”

“Mie Ken? Why Mie Prefecture?”

“I’ll explain later. Tomorrow, take the Shinkansen to Kyoto, and change for the

Kintetsu Line. Get off the train at Akame station and I’ll meet you there, at the

station. It’ll probably be around 2 or 3 by the time you get there, but don’t worry if

it’s later. I’ll be waiting, no matter how late it is. Don’t call me on your cell phone.

And tomorrow morning, make sure you don’t get on the Shinkansen at Shin-

yamaguchi in case those men are there. Take a taxi to Hofu or Ube and take the

Sanyo line for a while before you get on the Shinkansen somewhere down the line,

like Hiroshima. With Yuuki, you’ll be easy to spot, it’s a school day and kids are in

school, so be careful.”

“O.K.”

“But don’t panic. After all, they don’t know that you can’t drive, and the highway

bus is also a possibility. Although the police are somewhat searching for me, the

people that I’m worried about are not directly working for the government. “

“I certainly HOPE they aren’t working for the government!”

“----so, what I mean is that you could be headed for Fukuoka, or the airports, or

staying with a friend. They have no idea. They are really looking for me, not you.

They just hope that you’ll lead them to me. They might follow you, and you

wouldn’t even know it, actually.”

“I see.”

“What I’m trying to say is be careful but, as I said, don’t panic.”

“Why Mie Prefecture?”

“Think about it and I’m sure you’ll think of the answer.”

“Of course”, I said after thinking for a few seconds, “you have old family

connections there. But not your immediate family, after all. They all left long ago.

What is going on?”

“I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow”, said Haruki, “sleep well”

Chapter 6

That night, the crane visited me in my dreams. This time, when he appeared

beside my futon, it was not in our old wooden rental house, but it was in my hotel

room at the Umedaya. Orsino---it was him, of course--- brought me, as usual, to

the strange and deserted but beautiful theater in the sky where we always went. I

felt such a sense of relief to be away from men chasing after me, even if was just a

dream. I couldn’t help but wonder if I died tragically in the dangerous adventure

that had befallen Haruki, would I end up here, in the sky, with this spirit, Orsino,

forever?

I felt consoled by the thought.

“Mari”, he said, “be very careful and do not wish for such things. If something

happens to you, you won’t necessarily end up here, you know. You have to realize

that. They spirit world is not what you think. It is not like ordering what you want

on a menu. It doesn’t function like the material world. There’s no music, no sun, no

wind, no water, nothing. You can’t imagine what it’s like. What you see now, what

you sense here, is all an illusion. I can appear like this to you because you are

human now.”

“There’s no music?” I was incredulous.

“Music needs sound waves, pressure, air-----material reality-----so, no, in the

spirit world, we do not have it. And we do not miss it either.”

“I would miss it.”

“You won’t---that is, when the time comes. But you mustn’t become a spirit just

yet. I want you to remain a living human being for quite a while longer, if you don’t

mind.”

His eyes, being those of a spirit, had a dark but shimmering intensity that made

them difficult for me to manage to stare at for a long time at once, a galaxy next

door swirling just beyond my vision. I would have to look away after a few seconds,

always..

“Be careful. I know more than you imagine about this.”

I looked at him briefly. He must mean Haruki’s problem, which was now

becoming my problem too.

“I suppose I should have guessed it”, I said.

Should I find out what I could here, was I supposed to do that? Gather

information where I could, even here? Or was that not allowed? And who would

decide? If this was all an illusion, then how was I to get any help from here?

He didn’t say anything, but stared at me very quietly and suddenly, in my

mind, I saw a dark chasm open up and then shut completely.

He had sent me a message.

There was a path, a very obscure path, from our world to theirs.

Like a mirror in the shape of a cube with a corner that you couldn’t quite peer

around and into from where you were.

But almost. You could almost reach it, if you sent your mind whirling to the edge

of that mirror and bid it softly to have a quick---a very quick--- look and return just

as fast, an invisible boomerang made of the wind, quite, quite before you drowned

there, your senses lost completely.

It could be done, yes, it was possible, but still, all the conscious effort in the

world might not bring the desired results.

Unconscious effort---or rather, that is to say, no effort at all---was much better

and more efficacious. It was a matter of feeling your way there.

So relax.

He was smiling at me now.

“You’ve understood it mainly, but you should also know that I can’t do much to

help you, separated as we are in our very different dimensions. It is not easy for

me to come all the way and find you; it’s so much easier, of course, when you are

asleep. When you’re awake, things are much more difficult. As you can imagine,

the transformations all require time and energy. Mari, you must promise me to be

very, very careful. I was worried that you would get involved in this.”

I was too apprehensive to reply. I looked down, not wanting to see or think or

feel, and wishing, heretically, that I didn’t exist in any dimension.

How much easier that would be than this.

The stage that day was plunged in an ochre shade and later I wondered if the

weather was reflecting his worries and fears or perhaps mine. Everything seemed

darker and had a purplish and macabre cast, and I did not feel nearly as peaceful

as I usually did. We could both sense the difference and I found, after I got back to

my futon in the Umedaya, that I couldn’t sleep very well.

Chapter 7

The next morning, I was tired, and we had no clean clothes, so Yuuki and I were

both in a bad mood. I paid for the hotel room with the 20,000 yen in my purse,

then we found a cab outside and I directed the cabdriver to the nearest ATM,

where I took out 100,000 yen. It was a lot of money for me.

“Where to?” the cab driver, a thin, angular man with grayish skin, asked.

“Hofu Station”, I said. I knew it would be expensive, but I wanted to avoid the

whole Kiyama Line and even the nearest part of the Sanyo Honsen.

“Wait”, I said, thinking. “Let’s make it Daido Station instead”. Daido was a tiny

station right before Hofu Station. There was bound to be no one waiting for us

there. Yuuki had his black school knapsack and stood out in a crowd. Other children

were in school at this time.

At Daido Station, we got on a train bound for Iwakuni.

“I’m hungry”, said Yuuki.

Daido Station is so small that there are no convenience stores nearby or tiny

shops selling candy and snacks in the station either.

“But we had an enormous dinner last night!” I said, pretending to be astonished,

“we had crab and tofu and miso soup and two bowls of rice each and ginger

pickles and grilled fish and egg custard, and orange jelly for desert too!”

“Well, I’m hungry again!”

“Just wait until we get to Iwakuni”.

Yuuki stared glumly out of the window. His black school bag beside him was no

doubt reminding him of his friends and all the fun he was missing. He liked school.

On the other hand, I was not hungry at all. I was too worried to eat. When the

train stopped at Hofu Station, I angled my face to see out of the window and

scanned the platform surreptitiously from under my broad-brimmed hat. Were

those men here somewhere? Or were other people I didn’t recognize already

following us and I just didn’t know it?

Maybe it was a woman who was following us? As the train lurched forward, I

peered around. Was it that placid-looking woman with who was sitting across the

aisle in her 60s wearing a white nylon windbreaker and jeans? She looked like a

grandmother on her way to her part-time job or maybe to visit a sick friend in the

hospital. She couldn’t possibly be a Vector agent----but how could I be sure?

My body felt tense and my neck muscles were taut and I wondered if I would

soon be getting one of my hideous headaches.

I was glad that I had become a teacher and not a spy. Quite obviously, I did not

have the constitution or the physical requirements for covert intelligence work. I

wanted to get off the train and take Yuuki home to Kiyama. I would take a long,

peaceful nap on my soft futon in the quiet tatami room after I had brought him to

school. But first, I would definitely phone up Haruki and curtly ask him to stop

bothering me with things that did not concern me. Then, in my daydream, I pictured

my long-awaited nap being interrupted by the sound of the doorbell and I envisioned

two black-clad men standing outside my genkan when I ventured to slide the door

open a few centimeters. Their faces weren’t friendly.

I shuddered.

“Mom, are you all right?”, asked Yuuki, watching my face.

“Oh, yes, maybe I’m also a bit hungry”, I said, trying to sound carefree.

It seemed like my dreams and daydreams were informing me that this strange,

impromptu train ride was, after all, the lesser of two evils.

Chapter 8

At Iwakuni Station, down the Sanyo Line from Daido station, I bought two tickets

for Kyoto on the Shinkansen. We would take the Kodama Shinkansen, the slowest

Shinkansen, the only one that stopped at Iwakuni, until Hiroshima and then change

for a Nozomi, the fastest Shinkansen.

I bought Yuuki two rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed and a plastic bottle of

roasted barley tea at a small shop selling snacks. And for myself, I bought a bag of

pistachio nuts and a bottle of green tea. Yuuki found a comic book he wanted at

the magazine rack, and I added it to the pile. Now I had only 80,000 yen left. I

hoped that Haruki would have more money in his wallet.

The platform was not very crowded. I looked at the few people around to see if

any looked like the same ones from the train we had just gotten off, and therefore

might be following us, but I soon abandoned the task. I felt ridiculous. How was I to

tell a Vector agent from a businessman or a grandmother or anyone else?

How did spies manage all the complicated details, anyway? How did they figure

out who was who, and who was following them and who was just on their way to

work?

On the Shinkansen, I used my cell phone to call the school where I hoped I was

still employed.

“I’m very sorry for not calling earlier”, I said, “my husband suddenly became

sick. I must visit him at once.”

The person on the other end, a woman in the reception office, sounded alarmed.

“Oh, my.”

“I will have to be gone for a week or two. I’m very sorry about the

inconvenience.”

Yuuki had consumed the rice balls and was reading the manga, One Piece, I had

bought him.

At Hiroshima, we got on a Nozomi super express, and both Yuuki and I fell

asleep. When we woke up, we were almost at Kyoto Station. It was just after 2

o’clock.

Would we be meeting Haruki after all that evening? Had he been caught?

Was anyone following us?

Energized by the nap on the Shinkansen, I suddenly had an idea. It wasn’t

original, more like a cliché from some spy movies I had seen in the past. Yet I

wanted to try it for myself, and now was my chance. It seemed like it might even

be fun.

“Yuuki”, I said, “we’re going to play a little game.”

“What kind of game?” He looked pleased.

“We’re going to go into that crowded department store over there. You see it?

It’s called Isetan. It’s full of people, commuters, tourists and the people who live in

Kyoto, and we are going to pretend that someone behind us is secretly following

us, except that we don’t know who or what they look like. But if we go into that

store, there is a good chance that this mysterious person pursuing us will lose us, if

we are fast enough and clever enough.”

“Mom, have you been watching Detective Conan?”

“You guessed it!” I said with a bright smile.

We went up three escalators fast and then wandered over behind some shelves

of towels, where we stayed for 20 long minutes. It was hard to know if the lingering

shoppers around us were spies or not.

We went up to the roof where you can see the whole of Kyoto and we stayed up

there for almost an hour. There was a tiny shop selling ice cream and Yuuki wanted

vanilla. We sat on a small bench and I wanted badly to text Haruki. But I

remembered what he had said. Cell phones can be tracked. Data was data. If it

existed somewhere in a server then it could also be found later by someone who

knew how to retrieve it.

I decided that it would be good to arrive at Akame Station before it got dark. We

chose the elevators to descend back down to the second floor of Isetan and got

swept along in the early rush hour crowd in the station, a huge stylish black

granite building that gave the impression of being a stone cruise ship. The

complex arrangements of passages, turnstiles, and escalators led to many

different train lines, and I was glad to think that Yuuki and I might more easily

evade notice.

The Kintetsu Line featured rows of sleek reddish-orange trains, and after buying

a ticket, we got on one of the “express” trains that only stopped at the bigger

stations. Akame was a small station, so we would have to change at Yamato Yagi.

Forty minutes after we boarded the train in Kyoto, it pulled into Yamato Yagi

Station, and Yuuki and I, rather exhausted, got out and found it was surprisingly

large and old, crafted in cement from circa 1970, with lots of confusing platforms

connected with staircases and overpasses. Nevertheless, we managed to locate

the platform for the next eastbound local train and got on just as dusk fell.

Chapter 9

Akame was a tiny station, just two platforms. There was no sign of Haruki

anywhere as we went down the stairs from the east-bound platform and exited the

turnstiles. I looked through the doorway to see deep dusk and a small oval space

of asphalt for cars to pick or drop off passengers. There was no one around except

a station employee behind a small glass window.

Next to the station was a tiny tourist information center. It had no door or staff; it

was just a small open room, now rather dark despite the street light nearby

outside. There was a rack with pamphlets and a wooden bench on one side of the

room, and on this bench Haruki was sitting, absentmindedly studying a pamphlet

in the dim light. His knapsack was on the floor and he was sitting back and looked

tired. His hair was half gray and half black, and with his glasses, he looked like the

academic he was.

“Haruki!”

“Mari! Yuuki!”, he was clearly relieved when he looked up.

He got up and joined us in the doorway. We stood there for a moment, the three

of us, facing outside, and I couldn’t help but feel the solidity of our puzzling,

exasperating situation more clearly, now that we were together.

If only it had all been a strange dream!

But here was Haruki, confirming that it was not.

I saw the bright full moon overhead and vegetable and rice fields behind the

houses. It was undoubtedly the countryside. What on earth were we going to do

here?

Stations have little phones where you can dial local taxi services. Haruki walked

over and picked up the phone.

“Please send a taxi to Akame Station. Thank you. The name is Uemura.”

“But that isn’t our name at all!” said Yuuki, and Haruki smiled.

“No one has to know our real name now.”

“Why?”

“Oh, well, it’s because we…” Haruki paused.

“Remember that game we played in Isetan at Kyoto Station?” I said quickly,

“well, this is the same game. We are trying to do everything just like Detective

Conan today. We have to tell lies, we have to pretend we are who we are not, we

have to make up all sorts of strange things to say that aren’t true at all. And we

have to hide.”

“And maybe the game will continue tomorrow too”, said Haruki, looking at me,

“that’s the best part!”

“Great!” said Yuuki, pausing to yank Haruki’s hand as hard as he could, “I’m

hungry.”

I noticed that I was also hungry, but I was excited to see what Haruki’s plan was

to think about food.

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“Soon”, said Haruki mysteriously.

The taxi arrived and we got in.

“The Yunoyuri Onsen Spa, please”, said Haruki.

It was only a 15 or 20 minute cab ride. After a while, it seemed, in the darkness,

that the roads were becoming narrower and more winding. We passed few other

cars. We seemed to be on a mountain road.

“We must be in the middle of nowhere”, I said.

“Almost right”, said Haruki, “This is Iga, known as a famous region for ninjas and

ninja training, long ago. During the Edo period, ninjas lived here and practiced

their craft here, unless, that is, they were sent out to the capital on a mission.”

“Are there still ninjas here?” asked Yuuki hopefully.

“Well, no, not anymore. You see, ninjas are fighters, spies, and escape artists

who use only their bodies and a few simple tools and devices, like a rope, a stick, a

small iron hook, a wooden box, a straw, and other low-tech things like that. These

days, modern technology has put ninjas out of business, since weapons are really

sophisticated and advanced, with amazing and complicated technology. Fighters

now just have to press a button. Guns, radar, drones, missiles, tanks, helicopters,

night vision goggles, all that expensive stuff. You need a thick training manual and

big weapons factories to fight now. But it wasn’t like that long ago. Things were

simple, and ninjas specialized in simplicity, doing a lot with very little.”

“A drone? What is a drone?” Yuuki asked.

“A drone? Oh, you know, it’s sort of an airplane with no one inside. But anyway,

we were talking about ninjas, not drones. Ninjas are merely the pure human form

of fighting when there is nothing standing between you and what simple nature

has to offer you. Two opponents and their bare hands, a reed, a stick, a bamboo

pole. Natural things from the past like that. Of course, there are ideas---I’d even

call it a philosophy or a certain ingenuity---- to go along with it. Fighting is not just

something people do with their bodies. Fighting is something you need to use your

mind for too. But then, you know, you may have heard it, the mind and the body

are one.”

Yuuki yawned. Probably drones were more interesting, and he was getting tired.

Haruki was going to explain more; his lectures could be truly extensive, but the

taxi pulled up at the onsen hotel.

“Are we going inside?” I asked hopefully, thinking of a nice room and hot springs

bath.

“No,” said Haruki, paying the fare.

The Yunoyuri Onsen Spa was situated on a hillside and the cab had taken us up a

slope to a small parking lot. On one side of the parking lot was the entrance to the

hotel, which was lit and looked warm and inviting.

“But shouldn’t we go inside and ask if they have a restaurant? Yuuki’s hungry

and it’s dinner time.” Usually onsen hotels served all dinners in the room only to

hotel guests, but some might have a small selection of food available in a casual

coffee shop in the lobby, although usually just for lunch or afternoon tea.

“No, I have a better idea. And I’ve got some bread and rice balls in a bag here

somewhere. I bought them just a few hours ago at a convenience store.” Haruki

opened his knapsack and took out some plastic bags with food. Yuuki took a rice

ball.

“Now”, said Haruki, “we walk.”

It wasn’t easy to see it until we were closer, but on the other side of the parking

lot there was a small road. Haruki opened his knapsack and took out a new-looking

flashlight. The road wound up the mountain, diagonally and it was totally dark. We

walked for about 20 minutes, with no one passing us, and then we turned onto a

smaller footpath that seemed to level off. We seemed to be in someone’s

overgrown garden. An old wooden house loomed up momentarily in the beam of

light. The windows were old glass, single-paned and slightly irregular, with wooden

frames. Heavy bushes grew up around the walls. The whole building was pitch

dark.

“Here we are!” said Haruki cheerfully, taking a key out of his pocket and opening

the door.

I was too surprised to say anything.

Haruki led us into one room on the side and used the flashlight to move round.

Soon, I could see that he had lit a kerosene light in the middle of the tatami-mat

room. Three new nylon sleeping bags were beside us in a pile, together with three

sleeping mats.

“We’re home!”, he said.

Yuuki and I were too surprised to say anything.

“Great grandpa was a woodcutter!” he said, “don’t you remember me telling

you about him?”

Vaguely, I recalled that his great grandfather on his father’s side had been a

woodcutter, supplying wood for furniture, geta shoes, charcoal, doors, and such,

about 100 years ago.

“His son, my grandpa was born here, too”, said Haruki, “but before the war, he

went to Osaka to work as an apprentice for a carpenter he knew. The war started,

and he stopped working as a carpenter and was enlisted to build warships; after

the war, he went to accounting school, and became an accountant. But later, as an

older man, he returned and lived here until he died. Down near the onsen hotel

there was still something of a village here and there were a few shops selling rice

and vegetables and tofu and dried fish. Now, the shops mostly sell touristy things,

local pottery, fox masks, local pickled vegetables, toys with ninja themes and

things like that. It will be a serious challenge for us to stay here, even for a little

while, but I think we can do it.”

“However did you remember about this place?” I asked.

“Well, I visited my grandparents here a few times when I was a boy. My father

brought me here a few times. He had grown up in Osaka, but he had visited as a

boy too. Grandma was the last one left after grandpa died. She died around 20

years ago, just after the bubble economy crashed; she was a bit younger than he

was. I knew the house was just standing abandoned. I thought it would be a good

place to stay for a while and hide out.”

“Hide out?” asked Yuuki, sounding pleased, but then the long day caught up with

him and he yawned again.

“Why don’t you go to sleep in this sleeping bag?” I said, unfolding one of them,

“We don’t have any pajamas but never mind. Detectives and ninjas have to be

ready for anything, even sleeping in their clothes.”

“But I have to pee”, he said, “where’s the bathroom?”

“Sorry”, said Haruki, “but this house has no running water, quite obviously. I’ll

take you outside into the garden.”

They used the flashlight and went out the same way we had all come in.

I was left alone in the flickering lantern light. I had to admit that I had never

seen this resourceful side of Haruki before. I had always considered him just a

smart scientist; I was even surprised that he had thought of all of this.

Maybe he should have just contacted the police with what he knew?

Or would he then have ended up in an accident too? There was a proverb about

the long tentacles of an octopus reaching everywhere. Would the tentacles find us

here, buried in the middle of the middle of nowhere?

They returned, and Haruki filled a plastic mug he had in his knapsack with water

from a bottle, and pulled a new toothbrush out of its wrapper.

“Time to brush your teeth”, he said.

I was impressed. Haruki had even bought toothbrushes for us!

Soon Yuuki was fast asleep near the edge of the room.

“Luckily, it’s late October so the huge spiders and millipedes that were most

certainly here over the summer are gone”, said Haruki. Looking more relaxed, he

took a bottle of red wine out of his knapsack and took his flashlight into the next

room.

The kerosene lantern made a single yellow glowing circle in the middle of the

room.

Would the spirit I also loved be able to find me even here in this secret, hidden,

nowhere of a place?

Or was I too lost this time?

Maybe I would return to Kiyama in a few days as if nothing had ever happened.

This might, indeed, yet prove to be a strange dream.

“Look”, said my husband, returning quickly and holding two dark green glazed

cups, “grandma’s old teacups. They were still in the cupboard. When I was here

earlier today bringing the sleeping bags, I washed them with some water from the

river. This dark green glaze is a specialty of Iga-yaki. A rough but functional

beauty.”

He poured some wine into the cups and we opened the packages of rice balls

and bread.

I took a long, deep sip of the wine; it had a dark purple cast in the lantern light,

so beautiful in the dark green, rugged cups that I found myself no longer

interested in the food.

I was wondering if I would quickly get drunk and forget about the whole day in

this dark but relaxing little hideaway.

This time, not the ghost, but Haruki had spirited me away to another world.

Couldn’t this also be another dimension of a kind, a lost forest in what used to

be the mountainous training ground of ninjas hundreds of years ago?

If so, it was at least one on my own planet, this time. One with paths that were

traversable, if rough, and a knowable address, even if I didn’t know it.

But, tipsy though I might be, my questions had waited long enough.

“Haruki, please do tell me, what on earth is going on!”

Haruki carefully refilled my teacup and his with the red wine. He took a deep

drink and put his teacup down. His expression was intense and troubled as he

looked down onto his shadowy hands holding the dark cup.

“First,” he said, “I’d better begin with that night at Professor Fukuzawa’s

apartment.”

Chapter 10

“Professor Fukuzawa was waiting for me in his car that morning, the day before

yesterday, that is. I thought it was strange. But he knew that after I got off the bus,

I always went through the parking lot. He got out of his car when he saw me and

greeted me casually, but he looked nervous. Then he said ‘look, you’ve got to

come to my apartment tonight at 7. There’s something I think you should know.’ I

was really surprised. But I said ‘yes, of course’. He handed me a slip of paper with

the address. We started walking together for a few seconds and he suddenly said,

‘I’ve forgotten something in my car, after all. Please go on ahead. But it’s

important that you don’t mention this meeting to anyone.’”

“Didn’t you work together?”

“Yes, exactly. His office was down the hall. But he didn’t want to send me an

email, I guess. I realized it later. It would have left a trail.”

That evening, I went to his apartment. It was one of the large old cement

shukushas, the residence buildings for komuin, public employees, to live in, built

during the boom years.”

I knew a little about the shukushas there. Shukushas existed all over Japan, but

there was an enormous concentration of them in Kubatsu, which had so many civil

servants. There were two kinds of shukushas: row houses for families. Long, long

rows, 50 or 60. All in straight lines. I had been amazed at the sheer numbers of

them, all identical, like packages of cookies in a supermarket, when I had visited

Kubatsu and taken a walk with Yuuki in his stroller. Besides houses, the other kind

of shukusha were apartments for people living alone, mostly men whose families

had stayed in the provinces for one reason or another.

“I went straight up on the elevator”, Haruki continued, “Shukushas have no

fancy locks on the lobby doors, or intercoms. There’s just a doorbell on the door to

the actual apartment itself. I rang the doorbell and Dr. Fukuzawa let me in. He

asked me to sit down next to him at his desk, and he showed me some files in his

computer. What I saw shocked me. He explained that the project we were working

on was really intended for a very sinister purpose and we hadn’t been told.”

“What project?” I asked.

“It was a project the Department got involved with after getting a huge grant

from a large corporation called Vector. Have you heard of Vector?”

“I guess I’ve seen their ads on the internet on magazines. Satellites. Aerospace

stuff. Weapons and weapon systems. Drones, even. More than that, too. I’m not

sure about the details.”

“Yes, they’re involved in all of that and much more, and they have many

specialized scientists doing research too, of course, in order to develop new

technology. Vector needed some advanced research done, and our department had

the equipment and the expertise. Vector agreed to pay a vast amount, both to the

department as a whole and to each of the scientists in our department it hired as

consultants. I didn’t tell you about it. We had to keep it rather private. It was such

a lot of money, and our department wanted everything to be discreet, since the

whole university is run by the national government. We are public officials and we

can carry out research in partnership with other scientists, including ones in the

private sector, but to receive huge grants from private companies, for their

purposes, may be sensitive. That’s not really our mission. But with all the

government budget cuts and the overall bad economy, Vector’s offer seemed like a

windfall.”

“What kind of research project was it?”

“Well, we were told one story. Yet that evening in the shukusha, Hideo

Fukuzawa told me that he had found out a more sinister purpose for our research.

It may be the reason he is no longer alive. In fact, I’m sure it must be.”

“Now I understand”, I said, “It’s like they say in the spy movies. He knew too

much. And now you too know something you shouldn’t know, something someone

doesn’t want you to know.”

“Do you think I should tell it all to you, actually? It might be better if you didn’t

know it. To quote those old spy movies again, it might be safer if you didn’t know.

On the other hand, I hope to get in touch with some journalists and make the

information public as soon as I can. So you’re bound to find out. Unless I fail, that

is. And in that case I guess I’d have to ask you to do it in my place. It’s too

important to ignore. Not to mention that, since you’re married to me, you would be

targeted as well. So we’ve got to win.”

He looked at me. The shadows in the room played on the tatami mat and the

bags we had left around on the floor. Together, the shadows and the bulky dark

mountains of our scattered belongings all reminded me of a surreal diorama of a

newly dark and threatening landscape that we had somehow wandered into by

accident.

Outside, the darkness was total and the garden was overgrown. Everything was

unknown here. Our friends were far away. Food, electricity, gas heating, and even

probably having a lot of money were now all absent from our lives. Men were after

us. And Yuuki, our biggest responsibility, was only seven.

“I think you should tell me, of course, and right away!” I said. I was afraid, but I

was also terribly curious.

Curiosity has always been my dominant personality trait. It’s what makes me

who I am. I couldn’t play it safe and refuse to get involved in this project. I needed

to go at this from a place, no matter how amateurish, where I was sure of things.

I needed to satisfy my curiosity completely, in other words.

Chapter 11

“First of all”, said Haruki, “I have to explain what happened next in Dr.

Fukuzawa’a apartment. He explained what he had found out, and then he gave me

a flash memory stick with all the incriminating files he had and asked me to keep it

safe. He wanted to have another person involved, to back him up, in case anything

happened to him. He also wanted to ask me what I thought we should do.”

“What was your advice?”

“I said----and he agreed-----that we should just keep working as if nothing had

happened and then wait for a chance to bring the information to light and get the

project stopped somehow.”

“What project?” I asked, hearing my voice getting loud, “I can’t seem to get you

to tell me! It’s very frustrating! What project?!”

Yuuki rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep.

“You’re waking him up!” said Haruki. “I’ll tell you, but try to control yourself a

little. How can I rely on someone as emotional as you?”

I was about to get annoyed and defend myself, but he smiled mischievously at

me in the flickering light. I could never quite keep up with him. I had to laugh.

Haruki waited until Yuuki was sleeping soundly again and then began to tell me,

in a serious tone, everything.

“The project is code named Project Elsinore”, he said.

“Project Elsinore?” I asked, “what a funny name. Why? “

“Briefly, the night sky, crowded with bright stars, above the castle of Elsinore, in

Shakespeare’s play Hamlet was the inspiration for the name. There’s a lot more I

need to tell you about the Shakespeare reference later, but for now, just remember

that---as far as our research was concerned----it’s basically a weird story based on

the phrase ‘two stars that have left their spheres’, like Hamlet’s eyes and Juliet’s

eyes.

“Hamlet’s and Juliet’s eyes? Why?”

“Well, you see, we were told that the goal of Project Elsinore was to find the

sun’s binary companion star. That’s what the “two stars” refers to. That is, the star

that the sun---our sun----may be going around.”

“You mean, orbiting? Our sun is orbiting another star? Really? Can this be true?”

“Yes, there’s a theory, still only a theory that, in fact, our sun, which is, after all

a star, goes around another star. It may be Polaris, Sirius, or it may be a dark

companion star or a black hole. No one is sure, and we were extremely excited to

be given such a lot of funding and a great deal of freedom to find out whether or

not our sun, together with our whole solar system, is in fact orbiting another larger

star. The second goal of our research was, of course, to identify this other star, our

sun’s own sun, as it were. It would be a major finding if it could be proven.”

“But Dr. Fukuzawa learned something he shouldn’t have about it? So what is

‘it’, this secret?”

Haruki sat up. He seemed focused and taut again, though he also looked drawn

and sad now.

“It was quite a shock when he showed me the documents in the files. It seems

that Vector has a secret plan to launch hundreds of huge solar-energy-gathering

satellites to orbit just beyond the earth’s atmosphere. They will block the sun’s

light over a large portion of the Pacific Ocean, since, of course, this light will be

used to generate electricity. Vector plans to enter the market for electricity and sell

the electricity to the highest bidder, large corporations like themselves, their

clients and suppliers.”

“But satellites have to keep orbiting, right? Didn’t you say so once?”

“Yes, but with the new technology we were working on, the satellite remains

almost stationary, moving very slowly in tight circles only over the Pacific Ocean.

It’s obvious that no government of any country would tolerate Vector blocking the

sun on the territory of the land that makes up their country, but the Pacific Ocean

is commonly held, so Vector would use that fact as a wedge to act and in a sense,

take over the Pacific Ocean, or at least steal almost all of its solar energy.”

“But how does this horrid plan of theirs relate to the two stars idea?”

“We were told that we were making instruments, like gyroscopes and other

items, to measure the earth’s speed relative to the sidereal background----the

stars you can see in the night sky----but Dr. Fukuzawa explained to me what he had

discovered. The ‘two stars’ idea, or identifying the star that our sun is revolving

around wasn’t the real goal of Project Elsinore at all. That was just a lie we were

told so that we wouldn’t quit or go public with the truth. What we were actually

doing was figuring out navigation data that would be programmed into the

satellites and then also used to guide them from earth. I was shocked when he told

me how we had been tricked into helping Vector with their evil plans. The Pacific

Ocean will basically die once a large portion of it is starved of sunlight.”

“My God!” I said, thinking of fish, whales, seaweed, plankton, starfish. The

western prefecture where Kiyama is located is surrounded by the sea and every

town along the coast has a small fishing port. Everything alive in the sea would die

once the energy from the sun could no longer reach the plankton and carry out

photosynthesis.

It would devastate the food chain!

“The whole Pacific ecosystem would be disrupted and subsistence fishermen all

along the coasts of the whole ocean, of course, not only in Japan, would go out of

business and millions would starve. The poor would bear the brunt of it.”

“Can’t the government stop Vector?” I simply couldn’t believe that Vector was

going to be allowed to go through with this devious scheme!

“I asked Dr. Fukuzawa the same thing, but he explained that unfortunately,

Vector is so immense that it secretly pays off many politicians and political parties,

not just here in Japan, but in many other countries too. I had always had a kind of

bad feeling about working for Vector. It’s an enormous corporation with large

offices and facilities and factories in almost every country you can think of.

Although they were once only an American company, now they are all over the

world and elected representatives in practically every country are in their pockets.

Vector has kept the plan a secret, but their idea seems to be that if it becomes

known, they will use their funds to pay off any powerful political entities that try to

stand in their way before the satellites are launched.”

“Good heavens!”

This was ghastly news indeed!

“So my plan is to bring this out into the open before the huge satellites go up.

Once the satellites are established up in the sky, it’s too late.”

“What do you mean by ‘too late’?” I asked.

“No matter how many international protests are registered, it won’t matter.

There’s no way to bring the satellites down unless they malfunction on their own

and drop or get shot down by missiles, which is risky and dangerous, so Vector is

calculating that people will accept its effective takeover of the Pacific Ocean once

the satellites go up, kind of a fait accompli. Then Vector will mount an expensive

PR campaign to drown out any remaining opposition.”

“The beautiful Pacific Ocean! Nami’s favorite ocean!”

Everyone’s ocean.

Not Vector’s to steal!

I felt my body go weak and limp; just hearing this bad news was making me

depressed. How could people like those who ran Vector be allowed to have so

much destructive power?

“You have to understand something fundamental about all of this”, said

Haruki, sounding more calm and scholarly, but looking haggard and weary in the

shadows of the lantern light, “Mari, you see, the basic and underlying problem is

that oil is getting more and more expensive. It isn’t just the price in money or

currency, which is influenced by many things, but the physical effort, the expense

and energy that companies have to put in to get it out. To extract the oil, the oil

companies have to dig deep through the ocean floor, or mine oil sands, or else

they have to blow up oil-soaked rock. The same is true for uranium, for nuclear

power and it can be said for coal too---with all of them the easier deposits are

drained first. It’s sayaku. Things become harder and harder.”

Sayaku. Terrible.

“I think I understand the basic concept.”

“All of the work involved in oil drilling is tough, expensive, and time-consuming

and getting more so, of course, every day, so Vector wants to corner the energy

markets with its massive Pacific Ocean satellites before the oil gets even more

expensive and remote and difficult to obtain. When the global petroleum energy

situation starts to really bite, Vector’s factories that make everything from

aerospace technology to pharmaceuticals to weapons to communications, their

large investment bank, and their other divisions might not be profitable anymore,

and they’ll face an end to their power and influence. Frankly speaking, they must

be worried, or they wouldn’t be trying this rather extreme, risky and rather devilish

idea. Developing these truly revolutionary and remarkable satellites has cost them

billions of dollars.”

In the darkness, Haruki poured out more wine for us. I drank mine nervously in

one gulp. This was too fast, and some rose up uncontrollably into my nose and my

eyes started watering.

“I see” I coughed, “Their satellites will also keep them going, in other words”, I

said, wiping my eyes. What we were up against was becoming clearer to me now.

“Of course. And all the TV stations, the big advertisers, the huge corporations,

the plastics makers. The electric cars, for those who will be able to afford them.“

“And Dr. Fukuzawa found out about all this?”

“He hated to think about a dead Pacific Ocean. He told me that he was sent the

files detailing the satellite plan anonymously, so there must be at least one other

person in Vector who also hates this plan and wants it to come to light. But

perhaps he or she is also being watched by now, or maybe even dead, too. I don’t

know. Anyway, somehow, someone at Vector must have found out about the fact

that Dr. Fukuzawa knew too much.”

“What exactly happened that night, then?”

“As I was leaving Dr. Fukuzawa’s shukusha, I saw a man in a car pulling into

the parking lot. It was dark, but I saw his face clearly under the light in the parking

lot. I couldn’t remember where I had seen him, but he looked vaguely familiar.”

“When you got home, what did you do?”

“I heated up a frozen pizza for dinner that night, then took a look at the files

showing the designs for the satellites, their proposed launch locations, all the

specifications. I was eating my pizza while studying the files, and the details of the

plan just amazed me, but all the while, somehow, in the back of my mind, I was

still wondering who the man was in the car. It was bothering me that I couldn’t

remember. Later, as I was about to take a shower, I got a call from Dr. Aoyama, the

Department Chair. He told me, in a shocked voice, that Dr. Fukuzawa had been

found dead on the ground outside his shukusha. It seemed he had fallen or jumped

from the balcony. I was shocked. Dr. Fukuzawa hadn’t been depressed or sad. I just

knew it couldn’t be suicide. I hung up. I didn’t know what to do. I took a shower

after all, unable to think about anything except Professor Fukuzawa. I went to bed,

but I was too worried to sleep.”

“You should have called me!”

“I was already worrying about what was going to happen. Probably, I didn’t

want you and Yuuki to become involved. I couldn’t sleep, of course. And it was

then, anyway, while I was lying tossing and turning in my bed, that I remembered

who the man in the car was!”

“Who was he?”

“It was someone who had visited our research center. He could have been

someone from Vector. I don’t know his name. I had only seen him in the hallway

once or twice very briefly. He had never introduced himself or spoken to any of us,

it seemed. In fact, when I recalled him, it was as someone turning his head away

and seeming to blend in with the scenery, almost as if he had wanted not to be

noticed.”

“My god! How sinister!”

All of my exhaustion was gone, and I could feel my heart pounding with fear.

“I finally fell sleep, although I was worrying about the next day. What would we

hear about Dr. Fukuzawa? I was also wondering if the story would break and

everything would become public. But at 6 am, someone called me on my cell

phone. I woke up right away, I was sleeping very fitfully, as you can imagine. On

the other end of the line, there was a woman, but I had never heard her voice

before. She said ‘Professor Muramatsu, Don’t go to work today, and don’t stay in

Kubatsu either. Get out as fast as you can. Someone knows you were visiting Dr.

Fukuzawa last night. They know you have the files, and you are in danger. ‘ I said

‘who is this?’ and there was a pause before she said, ‘My name is Sumiré’ . Then

she hung up. I didn’t even have time to say a word.”

“I don’t suppose you know anyone actually named Sumiré, right?”

“No, of course not.”

“Was her voice familiar? Had you heard it before?”

“No, never.”

“Is Sumiré her real name or a code name then? All of these bizarre events are

like something out of a spy novel, not real life. I can’t even believe it myself.

Sumiré must be her code name. But why would she choose ‘violets’ for a code

name?”

“It could be her real name, obviously; I mean, it is a name, a woman’s name.”

“Of course, and we just have no way of knowing either way. But anyway, what

did you do next?”

“Since I realized now that Dr. Fukuzawa had probably been murdered, and I had

seen the man in the car, I recognized that Vector would be worried about what I

knew too. Sumiré’s warning haunted me. I had to assume that the man in the car

had seen me on my bicycle.”

“So what did you do? They could have been outside your apartment too! Those

dangerous thugs! How did you get away?”

“Well, don’t laugh, but remember how you brought up a bag with one or two of

your old cotton summer dresses for me to rip up and use as cleaning rags? I can

now safely admit to you that I actually had never gotten around to cleaning

anything with them, or even to ripping them up. It was lucky as it turned out. You

and I are not so different in size, I realized. I put one on, and cut the other one up

to make a large flowered scarf that I put on my head. I packed a small nylon bag

with some of my own clothes and put on a pair of loafers and a sweater and

walked out casually. There may have been someone watching in the parking lot or

not, I still don’t know. Maybe people just thought I looked crazy, someone dressing

for a cosplay. Maybe people thought I was really a woman, even with my razor

stubble. I don’t know, but somehow, it worked. Probably, it was just weird enough

to work.”

I had to laugh. Haruki could be very practical when he had to be.

Haruki smiled and continued, “I just kept my head down so no one could see

my face and I went to the nearest bus stop and the next bus took me to a train

station on the Joban Line. That’s where I changed back into my real clothes in the

men’s bathroom and melted into the crowds. I spent the morning riding different

trains, changing lines, going first west towards Takasaki, then south down to

Kanagawa, then over west towards Nagano. I got as far away as I could. I kept my

cell phone off the whole time, since, actually, you can be tracked with your cell

phone, though they need sophisticated equipment. But Dr. Fukuzawa told me that

Vector has good friends in the NSA, one of the major spying organizations in the

world, so the technology wouldn’t be a problem for them, I guess. By the time I got

to Hakone, I was fairly sure that I had evaded them. I called you later that

afternoon, when I was sure your classes would be finished for the day. I was near

Shizuoka but I thought it wouldn’t matter if they picked up my location since I was

just passing through.”

“Thank you. That was considerate of you. It would have been awkward to leave

in the middle of class.”

“Yes, I was fairly sure that it would take them time to think of accessing your

address and name on the university computer, and since you weren’t at home

anyway, I decided rather than have you panic and rush out of the classroom, it

would be better to wait.”

“Well, they did show up, as I told you.”

“Yes, they were quicker than I had expected. As I told you, there are some

powerful people on their side. They can probably deploy an army to seek us out.

Certainly they can use the police force as they wish. We are totally outnumbered,

of course. To tell you the truth, our situation looks so hopeless that I’m thinking, a

little, of just giving up. It might be safer. They’ll let you and Yuuji go, I’m sure, even

if they keep me locked away somewhere until after the satellites go up.”

“But what a world it will be if they succeed with their plan!”

“Exactly. So my thinking is that if I can contact some journalists at some

reputable newspapers to bring this out in the open, then there will be enough

opposition, probably, to force them to abandon their heinous and cruel scheme.

Decimating the largest ocean on the planet for money or for any reason must be

where human beings draw the line.”

Haruki lay back down and stretched and I checked the time. It seemed like we

had been talking for a long time, but it was only eleven o’clock. All the emotions

and fears associated with his story had utterly sapped me. I managed to crawl into

my sleeping bag, and I was tired enough not to care about the fact that we didn’t

have soft futons to sleep on. Haruki had done his best to keep us warm and safe. I

closed my eyes and felt my body becoming more relaxed. I was almost asleep, but,

then unexpectedly, suddenly two bright, glowing and beautiful stars came into my

mind and I opened my eyes wide in the dark, half expecting the stars to be before

me in the little room.

The two stars were still a mystery!

Hamlet’s eyes!

Juliet’s eyes!

The stars that had left their spheres!

And now I was desperate to know more about these stars!

In a whisper I asked Haruki, “What about the two stars that have left their

spheres?”

But there was no answer. My husband was already asleep. My lingering

questions would have to wait.

Chapter 12

That night, in my dreams, I awoke in my sleeping bag in the old abandoned

house in Iga to find the crane standing over me. In a few moments I was being

carried safely in his beak. Haruki and Yuuki were fast asleep on the tatami. We left

without waking them.

The door opened with a tiny whir, and we took off through the tree tops into the

dark sky.

The flight was the same as usual, safe, comfortable, warm. I dozed off while

paying attention to the beating of the crane’s heart.

Soon we were on the wooden stage. The crane disappeared behind some old

stands of scenery, a painted wall and a painted tree, cracked and faded.

Out came Orsino, my ghostly lover, in black and white, as usual.

“You dress like an old-fashioned court jester or a clown,” I said, “there are strings

tying your clothes together, or strange buttons!”

“Mari”, he said, flinging himself down beside me, “listen to me”. He sounded

serious. He looked worried. I was not in the mood for seriousness. I had had

enough of it all day.

“No, not you too”, I said, dismayed, “I’m not going to bring all of that horrible

stuff from the real world here now. Vector, the satellites, Dr. Fukuzawa, the spy

code-named Sumiré, something called the NSA, and all the rest of it! I’ll have to

deal with it all tomorrow in the real world. But not here, not now, not in this

dimension. No, I say! This ought to be a pleasant place. Please? Let’s just be the

way we were and forget all the things in the so-called real world. To tell you the

truth, sometimes it doesn’t seem so real to me as this place, anyway.”

I put my hand on his ghostly shoulder to appeal with my touch. He felt warm and

human, as always. I could never understand it. Did he also have a beating heart

and warm flowing blood? Or was it all a clever illusion?

“Mari, no, it’s here too, in this dimension. It’s already here. Simply because you

are in danger in that other world. Because if one of us dies things would change

forever for the other one. The dimensions are not separate, not at all, though they

seem to be. They are bound together and unified.”

“We’re wasting time”, I said, “when we could be spending it more profitably.”

I always felt when I was with Haruki that I was fully married to him, and when I

was with the ghost, that I was fully married to him. In a sense, as I’ve explained, I

had two husbands, and strangely, it all seemed fine and totally normal, like having

two passports or two pairs of eye glasses. In a way, it was much better than just

having one husband. This scene offered more variety and more scope for the

unusual, the strange, the inspirational and the secret. Whatever was mystical and

unique, fantastical, bizarre---without being dangerous, but merely interesting how,

then, I loved it, too. I seemed to need it more than food.

“Mari, you can be serious when you want to be. So try it now, if only for a few

minutes.”

I gave up on my thoughts of pleasure. I felt like James Bond being briefed by M

after M has thoroughly chastised Bond for being silly.

“Yes, all right”, I said. It was the real world that was dangerous, as I had always

thought. Here was fine. Why could I not just stay here?

Because Haruki and Yuuki were counting on me. That was why.

“You might be the one they are after, and you don’t have the right training or

the knowledge to prevail.”

“Do you mean, perhaps, that I will need to learn to drive?” I giggled. Driving had

always looked difficult to me. I’m a daydreamer so focusing on practical or

mechanical things is impossibly tricky. I had long ago let my driver’s license lapse.

“No, nothing to do with motorized transport”, he said, “You’ll need magic if you

are to survive.”

“Right”, I said, “Then I suppose you will swoop down in the form of a crane and

rescue me in your beak.”

“I would love to, but it’s impossible unless you’re asleep first. If you must stay

awake for any reason, of course, then I can’t. And, like any normal human, you

must, of course, be awake most of the time. So there is something else available to

you. Another kind of magic. Here.”

He put his hand up into the air and pinched his fingers together like professional

magicians do, only instead of a playing card or a silk scarf or a beautiful dove

materializing in his grasp, a small fox mask, white, with dark painted gray eyes

and red ears and blue and red whiskers, suddenly appeared.

“It is beautiful!” I said, “a fox mask!”

He handed it to me.

“The bright red paint here on the inside of the ears makes him look very fierce!”

I said, feeling that this object might offer some protection from life’s difficulties.

The little fox wore a small smile, mischievous yet somehow benevolent too.

“Indeed, but please notice that it is too small to cover the face and there are no

holes for the eyes”, he said, “it’s a decorative mask. Not one for a theater

performance or a disguise.”

He was right. I held it up but it barely covered half of my face.

“Am I not to wear it, then?” I asked, somewhat disappointed.

“You cannot, you see. Just carry it with you, if you can; it’s only a bit heavy. And

notice that it is made of clay.”

Though made of clay, since it was not big, it was only about as heavy as an

ordinary paperback book. I noticed that the inside of the mask was unpainted red

clay, rough, with small indentations, the shapes of the potter’s fingers that had

pressed it flat and smooth.

“What should I do with it?” I asked.

“When you will need it, you should throw it onto the path behind you.”

“And then what will happen?”

“It all depends on what the local gods or spirits in your vicinity at the time

decide for you at that exact moment. But they are usually more than competent.

So do not worry about that. A mask, as you can probably easily conjecture, is a

kind of interface between two realities----it has two sides that reflect two places,

two ideas----and when you break this magic mask, you will have the supreme

potential, just for an instant, to enter----it can best be described as a kind of sliding

process----into another reality. The mask breaking will be a summons to those who

can help you do this.”

“I see”. I definitely felt better.

He intertwined his fingers with mine and I put the mask, face up, down on the

stage beside me. I noticed that there were more candles than usual around on the

stage. In the candlelight, the fox’s eyes beside me seemed to glitter with

messages I couldn’t read.

I wanted to tell all my feelings to this ghostly man dressed like a jester in black

and white, whose face, in shadowed profile right near mine, looked so serious.

I wanted to tell him that if I had had to choose between Haruki, the mortal and

this spirit, I would not have been able to, and that about this I felt no guilt at all,

since they belonged to such remotely separated dimensions; my feeling was rather

a sense of unease at the way my life was divided. In the real world, I was only

worried about being dissolved in the ether and losing my corporeal self, and then

becoming unavailable to those who depended on me, like Yuuki, and now Haruki.

Yet when I was actually here, in this magical world with its wooden stage, I never

felt more like my true self.

Actually, that was another thing that worried me, but I kept it a total secret, not

even telling my ghostly lover, Orsino.

He may have known it anyway..

But I also, for now, had a real and physical body that I had to take care of. I had

to be devoted to my real life and the material world it was so much a part of.

Chapter 13

It was still dark, though I could see some dim light faintly at the edges of the

windows. Were there wooden shutters blocking the light? It was likely since old

houses always had wooden shutters. They were one way to provide insulation in

the days before electricity.

I was too nervous to sleep anymore. What time was it? I didn’t want to turn on

my cell phone, nor could I read my watch in the dark. I lay still and just waited. Ten

or fifteen minutes passed and Haruki stretched and yawned.

“What time do you think it is?” I whispered.

“Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe four or five, I guess.”

“Haruki!” I whispered loudly.

“What?”

“I need to go out to the garden! My bladder feels like it is about to burst!”

“I’ll get the flashlight and help you with the door; it’s so old that it’s a bit hard

to open.”

Outside, the sky was still dark but brightening at the edges of the tall trees. I

found a secluded spot and found it was rather pleasant squatting in the grass. The

cold breeze didn’t bother me at all, as I had feared.

“Ready?” asked Haruki, bringing the flashlight over to the path so I could see

my way back.

“It’s rather nice out here”, I said, “better than a dusty toilet.”

“That’s because you don’t clean your bathroom often enough”, said Haruki. In

the dark I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to make me annoyed.

“Hah!” I said. Usually I protested more. But I found myself not caring this

evening. In this new environment, keeping the house tidy seemed to be secondary

to just surviving.

We went back inside then found ourselves kissing. Sleep had given us energy.

Sex with a mortal was totally different than sex with a ghost, though both were

extremely pleasant. Everything was so real: buttons, zippers, edges, skin, fingers,

the cold floor, the smell of sweat, the effort, the turning around, the ways that

muscles moved and hair fell over the eyes.

With a ghost none of those things seemed to exist: no hot or cold, no touch

except for his, no sensation of cloth or buttons, no sounds, no hard floor or

tiredness, no itching or scratching. In the dream world of the other dimension,

things were much easier in general. Things flowed more smoothly and with less

resistance. It was like living in a soft and happy dream that was absolutely real for

a while.

But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t enjoy this material world with Haruki right

now. Actually, I enjoyed it very much. The material world has its own basic and

thrilling charms----- the edges of things, the dampness, the breathing sounds, the

softness of his shirt hem must be the very signs of life------and when I started to

moan Haruki put his warm strong hand that had a slight smell of wine where he

must have spilled it, gently over my mouth so the sound wouldn’t wake up Yuuki.

Closing my eyes, again I remembered the two bright stars.

A little while later, I said. “I thought you were going to tell me the end of the

story”, I said, “What are those references to Hamlet’s and Juliet’s eyes?”

“Oh, that.”

“Tell me!”

“Okay.” Haruki propped himself up on his elbow and turned to me, so I could tell

this might take a while. I hoped it would be interesting.

“Actually”, he said, “there were some fascinating ideas related to the concept. I

got a bit caught up in it all. I started reading Shakespeare in the original English as

a result. Actually, he’s really good.””

“You mean you were studying Shakespeare’s plays?”

“I mean I got interested in them. But let me start from the beginning. The name

Project Elsinore was the idea of one of the researchers on our team. She was an

amateur Shakespeare scholar----did you know that they call themselves

Shakespeareans?----- besides being an astronomer. She is also an American; her

name is Lisa Reed. At the beginning of the project, after we had been briefed on

our mission, we all went out to a pub for a drink. Lisa became tipsy on too many

glasses of iced plum wine and she started telling us about star imagery in

Shakespeare, quoting stretches of Shakespeare’s plays, a lot of which she seemed

to know by heart, and saying that the project reminded her of Hamlet’s eyes and

also Juliet’s eyes.”

I must have looked totally puzzled.

“Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet have a similar phrase in both, and, you see, that

was the interesting thing that Lisa had noticed. What she said was ‘you see, both

Hamlet and Juliet have eyes like two stars that have left their spheres’.”

“Two stars that have left their spheres?” I asked blankly. The phrase seemed like

poetic dead end..

“The spheres, well, it was an old concept in astronomy, now discredited.

Aristotle came up with it and later Western thinkers and theologians developed the

notion in more detail, that there were spheres, kind of like large circular lids,

framing the sky. Within the spheres was the earth and the moon, stuck onto the

spheres were the stars, and behind them, where people couldn’t see, were the

Christian god and all his angels.”

“Oh, I have heard of the spheres in that sense, I didn’t realize these poetic

spheres could be the same as the ones from ancient astronomy. As I recall, the

spheres delineated somewhere like the Christian concept of heaven?”

“I guess so, or at least the one they used to have five hundred years ago.”

“So, you mean that Shakespeare believed it was true about these spheres and

that the Christian heaven was there out beyond them?”

“Well, no, that’s not the conclusion Lisa Reed came to at all. I’ll try to explain

everything from the start.”

“Good idea.”

“That night at the pub, Lisa Reed used her smart phone to cite the exact quotes

from Shakespeare’s plays. I was quite impressed with her idea. Not having a smart

phone, myself, I copied down the quotes in a notebook I use for writing research

notes, and since it’s a research notebook I carry around everywhere, I have it here.

Haruki opened a small notebook he pulled from his backpack and switched on his

flashlight to read it.

“While Romeo is watching Juliet above him on the balcony, he says, two of the

fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to

twinkle in their spheres till they return.”

It seemed like a very pretty phrase to me.

Haruki read the next quote.

“And, in Hamlet, the ghost of Hamlet’s father says But that I am forbid to tell the

tale of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up

thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes like stars start from their

spheres.”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “it’s beautiful poetry, but why is it important? He

wrote these plays hundreds of years ago. Surely there is no connection to your

research.”

“That is exactly what we all said, too, that evening. But Lisa Reed, by then more

than a little tipsy, insisted otherwise. She leaned forward and told us a fascinating

secret theory she had been developing, connecting Giordano Bruno and

Shakespeare, along with the two stars and the spheres, to the very heart of our

research project!”

“Do tell me!” I exclaimed, but something else was bothering me and other words

rose up and I exclaimed, almost without thinking, “but, wait, Giordano who?”

“Bruno. I’ll get into his role in a minute. Just let’s first go back to the two stars

project. Remember, at first, we thought it was all about the two stars.”

Haruki paused and looked at me in the dimly lit room to see if I was following it

all. “So, tell me, have you ever heard about the precession of the equinoxes?” he

asked.

“No, not particularly.” I said, “but I know that an equinox is the day when the

night and daylight hours are the same. There is one in the spring and one in the

fall.”

“Right”, said Haruki, “and the precession of the equinoxes refers to the fact that

the date of the spring equinox slowly precesses, or goes backward, through the

night sky, and therefore through the constellations. So the spring equinox is in

Pisces now but will cross into Aquarius eventually. Basically it means that on the

day of the equinox, if you’re looking up into the sky, the sun will rise in the Pisces

constellation now, but it is very slowly getting nearer and nearer Aquarius.”

“Oh. Is this a new discovery?” I asked. This was all new to me.

“No, people have known about the precession of the equinoxes for thousands of

years. It’s also called the “axial precession”, the movement of the rotational axis of

the earth. As the earth travels around the sun, the axis traces out a cone shape.”

“I kind of understand.”

“It takes about 25,800 years for the earth’s axis to go through all the

constellations, and that’s one cycle. So each constellation takes roughly 2, 160

years, although the constellations are different sizes. So, it takes more time to

traverse the bigger ones and less time to traverse the smaller ones. Of course,

there is no sharp line dividing the constellations in the sky so exactly when the

transition from one constellation to the next happens can be and is a matter of

debate.”

“Well, anyway, 2000 years is a long time, whether it’s a little more or a little less

than that.”

“A long time indeed.”

“But I still don’t see what all this has to do with the two stars idea and Hamlet

and Juliet. Where do they come in? And what about those mysterious ‘spheres’?”

“You see, one theory-----and it is the commonly-held and orthodox one, the one

you’ll find on Wikipedia and the one that NASA goes along with too-----is that this

movement of the earth’s axis is due to wobbling, because of the pull of the sun

and moon on the earth. In that version, our sun does not orbit, it does not move, it

does not whirl through the heavens. For NASA, the sun absolutely stands still.”

“I see.”

“Yes, but the other theory explaining the precession of the equinoxes is that the

whole solar system----that is, our whole solar system-----is spinning around another

star, very, very far away, and that this causes the precession of the earth’s axis in

the sky. And this, of course, is the theory we were supposed to be collecting data

on.”

“Of course, I see. It’s the two stars. A binary idea. You already said as much

before”, I said.

“Okay, I did. I was just reviewing it to make sure you understood. So here’s the

amazing, fascinating part of what Lisa Reed told us that evening.”

“I have been waiting long enough to hear this!” I said.

“Well, get this, then. Shakespeare used the two stars imagery about Hamlet’s

and Juliet’s eyes intentionally and with full knowledge of and in full agreement with

the idea that our sun orbits another star. In fact, according to Lisa Reed, this

imagery was his deliberate way of coding in the theory: the theory that the

precession of the equinoxes is due to a binary star system including our sun!”

After she told us that, she folded her hands primly---we were all speechless----

and she said, ‘Therefore I propose that we call this mission Project Elsinore.”

“Wow. “ I said.

Not that I was an expert, but I had never before heard that Shakespeare had any

interest in the night sky.

“How could Lisa Reed prove this, though?” I asked.

“Well, as I said, Lisa Reed was quite a Shakespeare fan, or a Shakespearean, as

she called herself. One night a few years ago, she told us, she was reading Romeo

and Juliet aloud for Kazuma Yamaguchi, her husband. He was also a professor at

the same university, but his field was the history of economics. She wanted them

to read it aloud together, just for fun, making their voices different for each

character. She began with the first line and it was about coal. The second line was

also about coal. Kazuma, being an economics historian stopped right there and

said something like ‘wait a minute, stop right there! what is this all about? Why

does the play about fatal love start with the topic of coal?’”

“And what was her answer?”

“She didn’t have one! Lisa Reed told us how she stopped, swallowed hard, and

found she couldn’t answer her husband’s simple question.”

I stared at Haruki. Was there a simple answer to this simple question? Did

anyone know it?

Haruki seemed to think for a second, and then he said, looking at me, “so, by

the way, I should have asked you this before, but have you ever read Romeo and

Juliet?”

“No”, I said, “but I saw the movie version, the cool one, with Leonard DiCaprio. I

don’t think there was anything about coal at the start. But the movie starts in a

gas station. Does that count? It’s a great movie, by the way. You should see it,

really.”

“Well, I want to. But anyway, Lisa Reed told us those first two lines are often cut

in modern movie versions, so people don’t know about them if they don’t read the

play.”

“And so? Is that it? Is that all? Her theory is that people don’t know about those

two lines?”

“No. no, of course there’s more. So, she told us that she was really bothered by

those two lines about coal suddenly. She told us that she couldn’t stop thinking

about them for weeks. These weeks turned into months, and she still didn’t have

the answer. They were just two little lines, two little trifles which no scholar-- no

Shakespearean---- inside or outside the field of English literature had bothered with

before. But, Kazuma, the historian of economics, explained to her that coal was

becoming more and more important for the British economy toward the end of the

reign of Queen Elizabeth I. In fact, coal became the main fuel for Britain by 1603.

England was thus the first country to cross over from a solar energy base to a

fossil fuel base for its economy. But, of course, it wasn’t the last.”

Haruki stopped and gave me a secretive smile.

“Let’s pause here and test your knowledge of Shakespeare now”, he said.

“I told you I’ve never read the play! I don’t pretend to have any knowledge of

Shakespeare! Not the slightest except for a few popular movie adaptations! I only

like modern novels and poetry!! Shakespeare is too difficult!”

Haruki could sometimes annoy me like no one else.

He laughed, “Anyway, even if you haven’t read the play, you must have heard

the famous line ‘Juliet is the sun’?”

“Yes, of course”, I said, “That line, of course, is never cut. It’s one of those

famous lines everyone knows and part of popular culture all over the world. You

can see versions of it in cartoons and anime, in manga comics and

advertisements.”

“Exactly. So Lisa pondered about how coal had replaced wood as the number

one fuel in England and then, suddenly one evening, after months of wondering,

this famous line ‘Juliet is the sun’ popped into her mind.”

“I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Well, wood is solar energy directly, while coal is not. That is, coal is not a

renewable energy source, while wood is.”

“And?”

“She told us she took a few more days to look at the inner structure of the

Romeo and Juliet and noticed that the lovers are never interacting with others, but

rather they are always more or less alone.”

“It’s true, they are. I noticed it in the movie. That’s what makes it so extremely

romantic.”

“Well, that night at the pub, Lisa was a little red from drinking much too much

plum wine, but she downed another glass and took a deep breath and softly said

that what she had realized next was ‘Romeo is mankind, first worshipping the sun,

then leaving it then returning to the sun when the coal is gone’!’ We all sat there,

kind of stunned. It made sense, of course. But it was so unexpected. It’s supposed

to be a play about love. It looks instead like a Renaissance puzzle box hiding an

economic and cosmic story. We were all caught off guard. It was the last thing we

had expected.”

“Good heavens”, I said, shocked. “Your story is beyond strange.”

“We then all wondered why on earth Shakespeare had done this, if indeed he

had done what Lisa had said he had done.”

“And?”

“Lisa admitted that she did not know why he had hidden a structure like that in

the play. She couldn’t fathom why he would do such a thing. But she was pretty

sure that the structure she had identified was there. She said her scientific training

told her that the structure was too clearly delineated---and directly corroborated

with the line Juliet is the sun -----not to be truly intentional. Of that, she, a

Shakespearean, was completely sure.”

“What happened then? Didn’t everyone pour their warm leftover beer on her

head? It’s a pretty awful vision---Romeo returning to a solar economy that is

defunct-----no wonder Shakespeare made it a big secret. I would have kept it a

secret too.”

“Lisa just looked serious, even though she was clearly still very tipsy and told us

earnestly not to be concerned about the tragic vision at the end. She said we

shouldn’t worry, because Shakespeare’s plays, even the tragedies, are all hopeful

statements about the human spirit and she, despite being a Shakespearean and

all, hadn’t understood more than a small part of this particular message.”

I was too stunned to speak. The series of events leading up to this were too

strange and now this conclusion was even more bizarre!

“There’s a little more to the story”, said Haruki, glancing at me.

“Really?”

“You see, Lisa came to pack up the things in her office a few weeks later, after

she had announced her resignation. I was helping her carry her boxes out and we

were in the elevator. I told her that her theory about Romeo and Juliet was really

interesting. She said that a solar energy structure or allegory could exist in other

Shakespeare plays too. She was pretty sure one existed in Hamlet, for instance.”

“She certainly is one for theories, isn’t she? But she has no proof at all! Anyone

can see that. Right?”

Haruki ignored my question.

“She got into her little car and waved cheerfully, then she seemed to pause a

little, and she stopped the car and rolled down her window, “And Lear and

Macbeth, Much Ado, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Troilus and

Cressida….Oh, Haruki-san, possibly all of them!” and then she drove off. I was

stunned by the revelation and couldn’t even muster a wave good-bye. That was

the last I ever saw of her. Now I only stay in touch with her and her husband via

Facebook. That was where I found out more about the rest of her idea, actually,

and when you hear it, you might be more convinced.”

I wanted to know the rest, but at the same time, my eyes were closing from

fatigue. A short nap before Yuuki woke up and kept us busy seemed necessary all

of a sudden. Haruki also started to yawn.

“Mari, I’ll have to explain the rest of it, about Giordano Bruno and all the rest of

her theory later, OK?”

I was relieved. Not only did I also want to go back to sleep, but truly, these

theories were interesting but just speculation and as light and thin as the autumn

breeze outside: airy, fanciful, embroidered, romantic, all imagination with no

connection to the real world whatsoever.

Chapter 14

Around two hours later, I woke up first and this time I looked in and around my

sleeping bag for the fox mask I had held in my dream, but I couldn’t find it. I was

surprised, since the golden earring I had received from Orsino the first time he had

spirited me away I had found in my palm when I awoke back in my house that first

time. I had put it in my jewelry box, and it was still there.

I was slightly concerned about the missing fox mask, but I decided to place my

faith in the words of the strange spirit, and not worry about it or search anymore.

Haruki woke up next and went out to the garden and I followed him outside. The

garden was massively overgrown, surrounded by, dense, dew-soaked forest. It was

a true woodcutter’s residence. Haruki pointed to the path that led out to the small

road

“That road leads down the other side of the ridge. There is a small valley there,

with houses and rice fields. Later we’ll go and visit some people there I used to

know when I was staying here as a kid. Some of them might remember me and

could help us.”

Yuuki appeared in the doorway.

“Good morning!” I said.

I broke off a few of the longest branches from the bushes that were blocking his

path.

We walked around the garden and looked for little secluded spots and when we

had finished, we all went back inside. It was still dark because the shutters were

covering the windows. Haruki slid open the wood-framed glass-paned windows and

moved the large shutters over. Light streamed in the window, and we took a look

around.

We seemed to be in the dining room. Next to us there was the kitchen, and I saw

an old dark and dusty wooden glass cupboard filled with dishes. There are many

abandoned old houses all over Japan and they are often filled with all the

belongings of their long-deceased owners. In Kiyama, I knew of at least ten or

twenty such houses and I had always secretly fantasized what it would be like to

just move in one day without any formalities or announcements, contracts or

money changing hands. Many of the doors stood unlocked---I had tried them.

Would anyone know if someone moved in? Would anyone care? Would anyone

show up to claim the massive old pile of a house that I had whimsically decided to

occupy? This reverie was one of my favorites and now it seemed like my fanciful

day dream had come true.

We were very lucky that all the dishes and chopsticks and spoons were still here

in this neglected cottage. We carried some of the dusty dishes, after brushing off

the dead spiders and moths, down to a small river that wound its way down the hill

at the edge of the overgrown garden.

“This water is safe to drink”, said Haruki, “although it would be better to boil it

first.” Yuuki was delighted with this new rough life that seemed like camping out.

Once the bowls were clean, we carried them back to the house and Haruki took a

box of cereal out of a bag.

I left some milk in a plastic bag outside the door to stay cool”, he said, retrieving

the carton and opening it.

“You thought of everything!” I said, pouring a bowl of cereal for Yuuki.

“Well, not exactly everything. But I came here once yesterday by myself, and I

brought a few bags of groceries and supplies. Unfortunately, this food you see is

the last of it. We don’t have any way to cook. We don’t have a car or electricity or

a stove. Or a refrigerator. So now I’m wondering what to do next, actually.”

“”Hmmm”, I said trying to sound thoughtful. I also had no idea what to do next.

The sun reaching us through the dusty windows made the room a little brighter,

though the light had to come in through the overgrowth outside first. I ate my bowl

of cereal while trying, idly, to think of a plan. Walk to the grocery store? Where was

it, anyway? What if it was two hours away by foot, then what?

Haruki finished his bowl of cereal and opened another white plastic bag.

“I almost forgot,” he said, “I bought some cans of juice, and coffee yesterday

too. Here.”

Haruki and I chose cans of unsweetened black coffee, while Yuuki had orange

juice. Haruki sipped his slowly.

“Actually, my idea is this”, said Haruki, setting his can of coffee down on the

tatami mat, “let’s try to minimize the time we have to live like this. It’s impossible

for us to manage. So I’d better contact some journalists as soon as I can. They’ll

check that I’m telling the truth, expose Vector’s heinous plot, and Vector will face

criminal charges, dishonor, possibly bankruptcy. It will be a totally discredited

organization when the law, many governments, and the press get through with

them. But long before that happens, Kubatsu University will sever all their ties with

them, of course, and our lives---yours and mine---will go on completely normally,

just as before.”

Yuuki had stopped listening. He put down his empty bowl of cereal.

“Can I go and look around?” he asked.

“I guess so”, I said, “but be careful. Don’t touch anything that’s too dusty.” Yuuki

went into the next room, and I went with him to peer inside quickly. There were no

shutters; light came through the dusty windows. There was a small red wooden

dresser with drawers, a few wooden boxes with lids, and a few stacks of old

newspapers and comic books on the floor.

“If you open the drawers, be careful not to force them. Old furniture can topple

suddenly. Ask me for help if you need it”, I said, going back to the dining room.

There’s a family, the Ueda family. Down in the valley over the ridge”, Haruki

said, “They run a small noodle shop, plus they have a rice field. When I was

growing up and visiting my grandparents here, I spent a lot of time at the Ueda’s

place too. I helped with the rice field and served food to customers sometimes.

Their son Eiji was about my age and we were good friends. He might still be living

there or nearby at least. Anyway, his parents will remember me. I think first we

should go and see if they can help us.”

I was impressed with Haruki’s plan. We could never manage all this on our own.

And frankly, I was worried about Vector finding this house in the woods. With all

their technology and resources, plus all the records stored in data bases, it would

not be hard, I guessed. A simple visit to the local Akame city office department

with the real estate holding records could probably turn up the exact address of

the house.

“You know, Vector could find this house if they decided to try,” I said.

“I know”, said Haruki, “they may have tried visiting or asking my parents in

Tokyo already. I called my parents yesterday from the train and told them I was

going to leave the country for a few days and not to worry if anyone came asking

about me.”

“Good,” I said, “but Vector can go and get the juminhyo----the family registration

data----and see your grandparents listed as former residents of Akame.”

“I know, but it will take them a few days probably. And then, remember that

there are my other relatives that they’ll check through too. They may even check

your relatives. There are other abandoned houses to identify and locate. And real

estate holdings are stored only on local city databases.”

“I know”, I said, “but I hope we can be away from here when and if they find it.

So I’m pleased about the Uedas. I hope they remember you and can help us.

There’s no way that Vector would be able to find them. So it would be a safer place

to hang out. I don’t mean move in with them, but if we can spend some time there,

it’s better.”

“Yes”, said Haruki. “So let’s go down there now.”

We brought the bowls to the kitchen and washed them in a bucket of water

Haruki had brought in and left there. The sink was simple and timeless: a slab of

stone with a carved indented space to hold water and a simple hole for the drain.

The tap, not functioning now, was just a bent pipe coming out of the plaster wall.

The floor was a dried earth floor. A short and narrow old refrigerator stood against

a wall, but it was the only appliance in the kitchen. It looked out of place. Clearly

the original lifestyle of the first inhabitants of this house had not included

electricity, although it had been installed sometime later. I was impressed again

and imagined their simple, basic diet: vegetables, fish caught in the river, rice,

treats like rice cakes from local stores eaten promptly before they spoiled. I

opened the defunct refrigerator and found some dead spiders and flies curled up

and dried inside.

Beside the sink, there was an old propane gas stove with two burners on a rusty

but sturdy-looking stand.

“If we can get some gas delivered, we can cook”, said Haruki.”

“Mom!” said Yuuki, rushing into the kitchen suddenly, and looking excited. He

was holding something dusty.

“What is it?” I asked.

He held it up to his small face, and I almost tumbled onto the earthen floor.

“I found it in the oshire cupboard, in a box.”

The fox mask!

It was exactly like the one on my dream!

But was it the magic one, or just a facsimile?

At any rate, I couldn’t show my excitement.

“Oh, wow!” I exclaimed casually. “Can I see it?”

Yuuki reluctantly handed it over to me.

I wiped it off with my handkerchief. The fox had blue whiskers, red ears and a

sharp expression. The back of the mask was unpainted red clay, with the same

indentations made by the potters’ fingers.

“Iga yaki”, said Haruki, “the local pottery again. Grandpa and Grandma both

loved it.”

“Don’t lose it”, I said to Yuuki.

I handed it back to him.

The thought that came into my mind without any effort was that the mask would

be available later, somehow, mysteriously, when I needed it; Taking the mask from

Yuuki, who wanted to play with it, and then putting it in my bag or hiding it in the

house, was going to run counter to the whole design of naturalness and harmony

that I felt was underpinning our success thus far.

Besides, I could see that masks like these were fairly common; probably they

were in every little tourist shop in Iga. Was Yuuki’s mask even the right one, the

magic one?

I decided that the whole episode seemed to be a little comic farce starring

myself. My spirit lover was, no doubt, invisible and watching it from somewhere,

enjoying seeing me, an impromptu and inadvertent comedian, befuddled and

surprised, no doubt.

“There aren’t any towels to dry the bowls”, said Haruki, “Can I borrow that

handkerchief of yours?”

“Mmmm, sure…”, I said, handing it to him, but feeling like we ought not to delay

our walk anymore, “or we can just leave the bowls in the sink to dry.”

Haruki handed the handkerchief back to me.

“You’re right”, he said looking suddenly tired, “I was forgetting. Or rather, maybe

I just wanted to forget. Let’s go.”

Chapter 15

Soon, after Haruki had packed up his laptop and the flash disk with the secret

files on it and put them in his backpack, we were walking through the overgrown

garden on our way to the little road that led along the ridge and down into the next

valley. Yuuki was holding the fox mask.

After we had walked for five minutes, a narrow footpath was visible through the

woods. “Should we take this path?” I asked, hoping that we would. It looked

mysterious and interesting.

“No, that goes to Muroji, the temple. The path leads up to the back. We’re taking

the road down the other way to the valley.”

“Let’s go sometime”, I suggested. Temples always have such a peaceful

atmosphere.

“It’s beautiful but you’ll be tired. Muroji has 700 steps up to the top from its

front gate, which is down on the other side of this mountain, a walk away from

here. A good half an hour at least.”

The road curved. It was too narrow to have any kind of sidewalk, but there was

almost no traffic.

I remembered my question from the previous night.

“So who was Giordano Bruno, by the way?” I asked. I wanted to hear the rest of

the story.

“He was an excommunicated Catholic priest who became a philosopher in the

Italian Renaissance. Because of his heretical writings, he was executed in Rome on

February 17, 1600 by the Catholic Church.”

“What kind of heresy?”

“He wrote a number of books and developed theories, I guess we would call

them real scientific and astronomical theories today----that the Church hated

because they conflicted with their dogma.”

“Like what?”

“Well, Bruno agreed with Copernicus that the earth was going around the sun

and not the other way around. But Bruno took the idea much further and said that

the sun was just a star, one of an infinite number. This idea made the earth and

humans tiny and seemingly insignificant, although arguably heroic in their own

intellectual way, and also conflicted with the theory of the spheres that the Church

held as the truth. If you recall, in their cosmology, God and the angels existed

behind the spheres and they were made of quintessentially different material.

Bruno said that was nonsense. And the Church definitely did not approve of the

view of man as tiny or .apparently insignificant. The Church was supposed to be a

powerful force that could exercise direct influence in heaven on behalf of ordinary

men. But under the vision of Bruno’s science, everyone seemed like little cosmic

specks. The Church must have found that a terrible threat to their power.”

“I see”

“Furthermore, Bruno was one of the first to see the importance of the sun’s heat

and light as generative forces for the earth. Now we call it solar energy.”

“That is interesting,” I exclaimed. Whether it was Vector’s secret satellite energy

scheme or Juliet’s hidden identity, the sun was certainly making an appearance

again and again in our conversations recently.

“And, in fact, Lisa Reed told us that night at the pub that Giordano Bruno’s ideas

about heliocentrism may well have underpinned Shakespeare’s conviction that the

sun was the energy source with the most staying power.”

“It sort of makes sense, actually”, I said, “and I take it that the dates when

Bruno and Shakespeare did their respective work all fit.”

“They fit perfectly. Bruno was born in 1548 and was executed in 1600;

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Lisa Reed told us that she had

come up with the theory in collaboration with her husband a few years ago. He

was an economics professor then, as I told you. I knew him a little. Kazuma

Yamaguchi is also a really good guitarist, and it was rumored that he was even

playing in a famous rock band, though secretly, and under another name. So why

was he studying a dull topic like economics?”

Haruki gave me one of his quirky smiles. He always looked so handsome to me,

even today, while he was clearly tired. Under other circumstances, I would have

felt this was a romantic walk in the autumn woods. I would have wanted to sing

and hold his hand. But not today. I turned around to look behind us and check that

strange men in cars were not following us. The trees rose up into the sky, but the

road was empty.

“Maybe he, for one, didn’t think it was dull”, I said. “And anyway, what happened

to them? I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Lisa Reed----Oh”, said Haruki, “She left our research team soon after that night

at the pub and was never heard from again……I mean academically. She didn’t

publish anymore research articles on astronomy. She left only a few weeks into the

project. I’m not sure, but now that I think about it, it’s possible that she had a

vague but intuitively correct sense of the rotten truth behind the whole thing.”

“Where did she go?”

“That was what was so funny, or maybe strange, actually. It was big news all

over the campus for weeks. She and her husband quit their jobs on the very same

day and they moved onto a sailboat with their cat and went off sailing around the

world.”

“Good heavens!” I gasped.

“But sometimes she posts a few lines on Facebook”, said Haruki turning to me

and handing me a red maple leaf he had just picked off a branch.

“Who? The cat?”

I smiled. Haruki’s eyes caught mine and I felt a warm flash of affection. No one

else in the world---in this world---appreciated my stupid sense of humor.

Someone else did too, but he was not here.

I held the leaf up to my eyes and the world turned dark crimson. I moved the

little leaf up against the sky and peered through it. The sun shone through a few

tiny holes.

“Ha ha. It seems they’re working at odd jobs and going from place to place

whenever they want, catching fish and performing.”

“Performing? How awfully weird! I thought they were professors!”

“Yes, her husband can play the guitar quite well, as I said, and Lisa Reed sings,

though kind of amateurishly. We heard her that night at the pub. She sang Au

Claire de La Lune while she was quite drunk.”

“Maybe, you know how it is, some people are so doltish at something that it can

become humorous and they can earn money that way, kind of as a gag.”

“Yeah, like those ridiculous YouTube videos of people dancing in their bedrooms.

Anyway, whenever they stop at a port now, Lisa Reed and her husband sometimes

perform on the street corners or in tiny bars for money, it seems.!”

“How fascinating”, I said, “It seems risky and adventurous. I think I couldn’t do

it.”

“She told us something funny before she left. She said that she wanted to see

the stars from the middle of the ocean, with no city lights around. She was not

interested in researching the stars anymore, she said, and she wanted to follow

them instead, just using her own eyes and no machines or lenses or instruments

getting in the way. We all thought this simplistic idea of hers was very odd. Those

last few weeks she was still at the university, Dr. Aoyama teased her and called her

a ‘rugged purist’ and an ‘ascetic naturalist’. He said ‘it seems our learned friend

Lisa is not satisfied with the finest equipment money can buy!’ But she only

laughed at his teasing.”

“So how was her secret theory about the two stars she told you that night in the

pub connected with Giordano Bruno?”

“She had found something interesting in one of Bruno’s books, the one called Gli

Eroici Furori, or, in translation, The Heroic Furies.”

“What?”

“At the very end of Eroici Furori, there is a woman, a kind of eccentric but clever

river nymph who appears on the bank of the River Thames. She uses her magic

powers to open a magical vase or urn which nine blind men cannot manage to do.

When she opens it, the men regain their vision and the first thing they see are her

eyes, which are said to be like ‘twin suns’.”

“That is most interesting.”

“Is it not? I asked Lisa Reed more about her theory on Facebook and she told me

a few more of her conclusions and urged me to read Eroici Furori for myself.” ”

“Did you read it?”

“Some of it, online. Bruno has a kind of passionate style, very strange, lyrical,

symbolic, and powerful, that straddles the border between fiction and non-fiction.

Some of it seems simple like folktales, but the details are where the philosophy

lies. And it is---or it seems to me---allegorical in nature, a lot of it.”

“Maybe it was natural for him to go to the very edge of everything all the time.

He seems to have been a true philosopher.”

“Indeed he was. And my question is this: did Bruno, with all his ingenuity and

brilliance, somehow guess that there was another star that our whole solar system,

including our sun, is circling around? And if so, are those twin suns’ at the end of

Gli Heroici Furori a reference to this theory? It is another fascinating thought.”

“Is there any support for the idea that Bruno was guessing there was a star that

our sun is orbiting?”

“He definitely agreed with the heliocentric model that Copernicus had put

forward, but Bruno added some new elements to the picture. Bruno said that it

was due to the sun’s heat and light that our earth circled the sun. It’s a

thermodynamic idea, one of the first in astronomy, and it turned out that he was

completely correct. It’s quite possible that he therefore also believed the solar

system in turn was spinning around another star, bigger and hotter than our sun.

That, essentially, it had to be so.”

“Is there such a star?” I asked, “I mean one that fits the bill.”

“Well, there is Sirius, for one. There are records of ancient cultures who believed

the binary star theory for our sun, based on the precession of the equinoxes, which

was well-known by the ancients from their astronomical observations, and the

ancient Egyptians may have been one of the people that included a binary star

system in their cosmological ideas. They revered Sirius. And Bruno knew the

ancient Egyptians very well. I’d say it was possible and more than that, even

probable that Bruno himself believed that our sun was going around another star.

The reference to the ‘twin suns’ doesn’t make much sense otherwise, in my

opinion. Giordano Bruno was very playful, very brilliant, very modern. Lisa Reed is

convinced that his works provide a whole cosmological base for Shakespeare, and

I’m starting to believe it myself, actually. Juliet is the sun. There’s a reason it’s the

most famous metaphor in the English language. There’s a reason. That reason is

Bruno’s modern ideas, showing just where we stood in the cosmos. We were not

necessarily insignificant or tiny, we---human beings--- knew where we were and

who we were. We were going around the sun. Our sun! It’s brilliant! And then…why

not add another sun, too?”

Haruki smiled at me and continued.

“Binary star systems are commonly recognized, not rare, and we astronomers

think about 80 percent of stars are in a binary system. So why not our sun too? It’s

more likely than not, in fact.”

I looked through the tree branches up to the clear blue autumn sky, imagining

this mysterious star---the sun of our sun--- out there, but of course, all I could see

were the autumn trees; some branches were bare, but on some a leaves lingered

and blew in the chilly breeze.

“Mom,” said Yuuki, interrupting us, “Could you hold my fox mask for a little

while?”

In my experience, children never wanted to carry the things they started out

wanting so badly to hold when they went out on a trip. Usually this was as source

of annoyance, but today, I was glad to be able to protect the fox mask.

I put it carefully into my purse while Yuuki started to collect leaves and acorns

that were scattered along the road.

“You see”, said Haruki, also looking up at the trees, “Lisa Reed explained to me

that when Shakespeare says that Juliet’s or Hamlet’s eyes have left their spheres

or ‘start from their spheres’, the playwright is making a secret reference to Bruno’s

idea that the stars are not to be found in the traditional Aristotelian spheres at all.

In other words, ‘leaving their spheres’ is Shakespeare’s special code for Bruno,

who had radically---and so dangerously, for him----abandoned the theory of the

spheres. Time had moved on, and Shakespeare knew it, was what the message

was.”

“I see.”

“And so then the ‘two stars’ that Shakespeare uses as images of the two eyes of

both Hamlet and Juliet, may also, according to Lisa Reed, be a further reference to

the ‘twin suns’ in Eroici Furori that may then refer to the binary system. It’s rather

poetical I suppose.”

“It is very definitely poetical!” It was a delightful theory.

Shakespeare had connected us to the stars in his poetry!

“It’s all quite a story, when you take it altogether”, I said, “and at first, I

couldn’t believe it at all, but now, actually, I think it may be just possible. It just

escaped notice all these centuries. For all sorts of reasons I guess. First and

foremost was that Shakespeare intended it to escape notice, probably. Lisa Reed

compared him to a ninja, hiding in the shadows, clad all in midnight blue, the color

that cannot be seen in the night. In the sense that his poetry hid secret meanings

that could emerge later---to everyone’s surprise--- I suppose he could be compared

to a ninja.”

“But why?”

“Maybe some sort of fight against coal, Lisa Reed said. He didn’t like it. He

wanted people to understand that it was limited, polluting, qualities like that.”

“How bizarre. What a strange theory” I said.

“Indeed.”

We walked in silence for a while. Yuuki had found a stick and he was lightly

tapping the tree trunks that he could reach with it as we walked along. A car

passed us and I wondered if it would stop ahead and block our path while sinister

Vector operatives got out in order to capture us, but it just drove on.

“Do you know where Sirius is in the night sky?” I asked Haruki. I was suddenly

curious about this important star..

“Of course”, he said, “I’ll show it to you tonight if the sky is clear. It’s a twinkling

bluish star.”

“Twinkling and bluish? I think I’ve seen it, then, if so. It’s quite bright”

“Impossible to miss”, Haruki said, squeezing my hand hard.

He grinned at me, a fierce grin, one of his specialties. It occurred to me that,

despite everything, he was enjoying this adventure.

I, on the other hand, would have run back to Kiyama immediately if I could have.

I am not a brave person. I have only my annoying, vexing, curiosity and my fears

and daydreams, hundreds of them.

Haruki, on the other hand, had always liked a challenge and now he had one.

Chapter 16

The mountain road twisted and turned.

“It might have been an old shortcut that ninjas used in the olden days”, said

Haruki.

The road took a downhill route and the trees became thinner and then the valley

spread out before us. I saw rice fields, now fallow in the fall, brown and muddy.

Behind them were a few farmhouses and some other small buildings.

“The wooden house on the edge there is the Ueda’s place”, said Haruki,

pointing. It’s an old farm, but his grandmother was running a little soba noodle

restaurant too, for extra money. It’s on the road that leads up to Muroji, so pilgrims

and visitors sometimes walk that way and could stop to have lunch. There’s not

really much parking, it’s more of a scenic spot. Locals would eat there too

sometimes.”

“Do you think they’re still living there?”

“Probably the family is still there. I’m not sure about Eiji, though. Eiji was a year

or two younger than me. We became friends and sometimes, as I said, I helped out

in the restaurant. But I lost touch with him long ago. He might be living in Tokyo or

another big city, though. After all, how many young people stayed in their old

country towns?”

“Well, if his family is still there, it is enough”, I said, “to be helpful to us.”

Soon the road flattened out and we took a right turn on the fork that led to the

Ueda’s house. The small driveway had a sign: “Soba”, and two small cars were

parked next to the house.

The house had been renovated a long time ago, I guessed, to make a space big

enough for a small noodle shop. There was a little red noren curtain over the

doorway.

Haruki bent his head under the curtain and Yuuki and I followed him through the

open doorway.

A woman in her late 60s appeared in an apron and flowered sweater and beige

skirt, “Sorry”, she said, “we haven’t yet finished the preparations for lunch. We

open at 11. Please come back then.”

“Mrs. Ueda?” Haruki asked, “do you remember me? I’m Haruki Muramatsu. It’s

been a long time!”

“Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Ueda, peering more closely at his face,

“Haruki-kun!” She broke into a warm smile, “It has been a long time! You were last

here when you were in high school! And now I see you have a family!”

She greeted us and then said, “I’m going to get Dad in the kitchen and Eiji---I’m

sure they will want to see you.”

She disappeared behind a blue curtain that led to the kitchen and returned with

Eiji and her husband.

Eiji was thin and tall, with longish hair, while her husband was still young-

looking, though he was probably near 70.

We all sat down to catch up. Eiji pulled out his smartphone. His own house was

nearby, he explained, “I’ll see if Miyuki and Haruka can spare a few minutes to

come over and meet you.”

Soon, we were all chatting over tea. Miyuki was a nurse at a local hospital, but

she was off that day. She arrived with Haruka, who was about the same age as

Yuuki. The children ran off to play with Haruka’s computer game. As Yuuki was

leaving, he saw, near the window curtains, a table with grid marks on it.

“What’s this for, dad?” he asked, interrupting our conversation.

“It looks like a shogi board,” said Haruki, “Are you still playing?” he asked Eiji, “I

remember you always liked it.”

“Still playing? I enter local competitions all the time”, said Eiji, “and I run shogi

lessons here for kids once a week. How about you? You used to be quite good, too,

I remember.”

Haruki laughed, “No, not me, though sometimes I play chess against the

supercomputer at work.”

“I’d like to learn to play shogi,” said Yuuki.

“Later I’ll teach you” said Eiji, “it’s not hard.”

The kids ran out the door, and we continued our introductions. With all the basic

information exchanged, a silence settled over the table and Haruki paused

uncomfortably. I looked down at the table, feeling worried about disclosing this

information to people who shouldn’t be involved at all.

It was just that we couldn’t think of any other way out than to ask for their help.

“I’m afraid that we’re not just here to visit socially,” he said, “we have a problem

and we need some help.”

Chapter 17

When Haruki had finished explaining about Vector and the satellite project, the

Uedas all looked worried.

“How can we help you?” asked Eiji.

“I need to borrow your smartphone for a few days. The problem is that you can’t

report it lost or the provider will shut down the account.”

“That’s no problem. Usually I just use it for suppliers to the restaurant or people

coming to the shogi lessons, and all that information is on the notebook

computer.”

Eiji handed over his smartphone.

“Thanks,” said Haruki, “I don’t think I’ll need it more than a few days. I’ll also

need to come here and charge it up, as we obviously don’t have electricity in

grandpa’s old house.”

“Please come anytime. Come for meals when you want to, if cooking is a

problem.”

The children suddenly returned, a car drove up outside, and Mrs. Ueda got up.

“Customers,“ she said, “It’s already eleven o’clock. So we have to start

cooking.”

Eiji looked at Haruki, “You can eat lunch here and make yourselves comfortable

all day.”

“If it gets busy, we’ll help you,” said Haruki, “I still remember where the dishes

are kept.”

The children, returning because they were hungry, found some comic books on

the shelves and started eating rice crackers Mrs. Ueda gave them. Haruki picked

up a newspaper and I chatted with Miyuki.

It was such a pleasant scene, with the sun streaming in through the windows

and flowers on the tables.

I was trying hard to believe that things would always be this easy.

We did stay at the Uedas all day. I took an afternoon nap upstairs in a warm

sunny tatami mat room while Haruki used their computer to check the names of

some possible journalists to contact. Later, after I woke up, I went downstairs. It

was the lull between the end of the lunch serving hours and the beginning of the

dinner service, and Eiji was teaching Yuuki how to play shogi.

“Stay for dinner, please, and we’ll give you some food to bring back to your

house so you can have some breakfast tomorrow” said Mrs Ueda, kindly.

Of course, we agreed at once.

At five o’clock, a few customers started arriving for dinner. Haruki and I helped

chop vegetables and boil noodles.

At seven, the restaurant became less busy. Haruki, Yuuki and I sat down in the

dining room and ate our own dinner of soba noodles.

“Thank you so very very much,” said Haruki, bowing slightly, when we had

finished. “Doumo arigatou…”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Ueda said, “Eiji, don’t you think you should drive them home?”

Eiji nodded immediately, “Sure, of course,” he said, “I’d be happy to drive you.”

Haruki and I looked at each other. We always preferred to walk, but it was hard,

sometimes, not to seem too weird to everyone with a car. Being offered rides was

therefore a source of perpetual stress.

“No, thank you very much,” Haruki said, “we like that walk on the mountain and

tonight the moon will light our way.”

“There are a few stars in the night sky I want Haruki to show me, too,” I said

with a smile, “usually he’s away from Kiyama and he can’t.”

Eiji smiled, “Sure, just be careful on the road. It’s pretty safe, though. We go for

walks there often. And now that the leaves are gone, you’re right, the moon will

light your way and the stars will be clear too.”

Haruki and I were always refusing rides since we loved to walk..

Mrs. Ueda gave me bag of rice balls she had made. “Here is your breakfast, “she

said, “they mostly have sea kelp, though a few are pickled plums and some are

just plain salt.”

We thanked her and all the Uedas for their help again.

“Probably we’ll return in the morning,” said Haruki, “and I’ll try to contact some

of the people who I was checking today, if I may borrow your computer.”

The Uedas agreed at once and Haruki, Yuuki and I put our jackets on and started

out on the road that led back up the little mountain.

Chapter 18

“Did you find any good prospects to contact?” I asked as soon as we were

alone..

“Maybe,” said Haruki, “I think I’ve narrowed the journalists down into a few

categories: those who would be sympathetic with our cause, those who would

actually approve of Vector’s scheme, and those who wouldn’t believe me. I need a

little more time to consider some of the journalists I have found who I think belong

in the first category. I may even be able to contact some tomorrow from the Uedas.

I’ll probably use the smartphone tonight to look for some more possible contacts”

“That’s great”, I said. “But don’t you think we’ll have to go to a larger city to

meet them and stay in a hotel? They can’t be expected to find their way here. It’s

quite a complicated journey”

“Yes, you’re right. After I decide which journalists to contact, I’ll decide whether

we should meet in Kyoto or Osaka or maybe another city, maybe even Tokyo.”

“So we won’t be here much longer, then.”

“No, why, are you sad? Do you like it?”

“I do kind of like it, actually. But Kiyama is easier to live in.”

The sky was already dark, and a few stars were visible over the rice fields.

I looked up. “Is it possible to see Sirius yet?” I asked.

“Hmm” he said, looking up, “Find Orion the hunter, then go to the last star on

Orion’s belt, then look to the left of that star. Look for a bright blue, flashing star.”

Haruki traced out the route with his hand. Yuuki was also looking up.

There is was. Not as big as I had thought, but it was quite bright and distinctly

blue.

“It doesn’t look any different from all the others” he said.

“But it is“ said Haruki, “Sirius is a special star in astronomical lore. Mysteriously,

Sirius is associated with canines, wolves, dogs or coyotes, in the names it has been

given by many people all over the world. It is nicknamed the ‘dog star’ in the west,

because it is a star in Canis Major, one of Orion’s hunting dogs. But even in places

where there wasn’t Greek mythology, such as Japan and China it is called Tenro,

the “celestial wolf”. Native American tribes used various names for it: ‘dog-face’,

‘the coyote star’ ‘moon dog’.”

Yuuki looked up and studied the sky again while Haruki, the academic,

proceeded with his lecture.

“The month-long period from early July through early August, when Sirius rises

in conjunction with the sun is sometimes called, in the West, ‘the dog days’ since

the ancients felt that the combination of the sun during the day and the star at

night was responsible for the summer heat.”

As an English teacher, of course, I had heard of the expression, though it didn’t

make that much sense in Japan where the cool rainy season often extended

through the first two-thirds of July.

But of course, I knew that the rain was due to the heat of the sun, evaporating

water from the Pacific Ocean.

Haruki continued, “But what is really interesting is that Sirius is highest in the

sky at midnight every New Year’s Eve. We astronomers refer to this as the

midnight culmination of Sirius.”

I had heard of dog days and dog star and Tenro, but I had not known about this

new fact at all. “Do you mean that the calendar is based on it?” I asked.

“Yes, starting with the Egyptians, who based their calendar on when Sirius was

first visible in the eastern sky, shortly before sunrise. We use it too, in our

calendar, since its zenith, and not the winter solstice, heralds the New Year.”

“I will look for it next O-Shogatsu!” I said emphatically.

Never mind about the possibility of our sun circling Sirius! What amazed me was

that in essence, we had already designed a calendar that did just that!

We waked in silence for a while, enjoying the stillness of the moonlight and the

forest.

“By the way“ I said, finding myself in the mood for gossip and not a lecture

“what is Lisa Reed up to now? I don’t mean her singing and all, and I know you said

that she’s not doing any more research on astronomy, but she’s still a

Shakespearean, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yes, she’s most definitely still a Shakespearean, of course. Actually, I was

reading a paper on her personal academic site a few days ago. Now, it seems, she

has a new theory about Robert Chester and Torquatus Caeliano.”

“Who?”

“Wait a second,” said Haruki, taking out his Eiji’s smartphone. He entered a few

words and then pressed the screen. I peered down at it and read the strange text

as Haruki scrolled down for me:

Love's Martyr: or Rosalins Complaint. Allegorically shadowing the

truth of Loue, in the constant Fate of the Phoenix and Turtle. A

Poeme enterlaced with much varietie and raritie; now first translated

out of the venerable Italian Torquato Caeliano, by Robert Chester.

With the true legend of famous King Arthur the last of the nine

Worthies, being the first Essay of a new Brytish Poet: collected out of

diuerse Authenticall Records. To these are added some new

compositions of seuerall moderne Writers whose names are

subscribed to their seuerall workes, vpon the first subiect viz. the

Phoenix and Turtle.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“What you just read was the introduction to an obscure poem called Love’s

Martyr. Lisa Reed got an idea to investigate William Shakespeare’s poemThe

Phoenix and the Turtle, which first appeared in this collection, Love’s Martyr. The

poem describes a funeral for the deceased Phoenix and Turtledove, the latter a

traditional symbol of devoted love.”

“So what? I said, “that doesn’t sound strange.”

“Well, on Wikipedia, you may be surprised to find out that the people named

‘Robert Chester’ and ‘Torquato Caeliano’ seemingly never existed. Nor are these

the only mysteries surrounding the poem: Lisa Reed posted her findings and I’m

just quoting what she wrote.”

“Good heavens,” I said. Haruki searched “Robert Chester” on the smartphone,

and I read:

Robert Chester (flourished 1601) is the mysterious author of the

poem Love's Martyr which was published in 1601 as the main poem

in a collection which also included much shorter poems by William

Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston,

along with the anonymous "Vatum Chorus" and "Ignoto".

Despite attempts to identify Chester no information has ever emerged

to indicate with any certainty who he was. Currently all that is known

of Chester is his name, the long poem he published, and a few

unpublished verses. The poem's meaning is deeply obscure. Even the

authenticity of the date on the title page has been questioned. It is

also not known why Shakespeare and so many other distinguished

poets supplemented the publication of such an obscure person with

their own works.

The Italian poet "Torquato Caeliano" is as mysterious as Robert

Chester himself. No original Italian work from which the poem is

supposed to have been translated has ever been identified, nor is

Caeliano a known Italian poet.

Another mystery is the alternative title "Rosalins Complaint", since

there is no reference to anyone called "Rosalin" in the poem.

“How mysterious! What does Lisa Reed think is going on, then?” I asked

Haruki.

“She asserts that ‘Torquato Caeliano’ is really ‘Giordano Bruno’, who was,

in Shakespeare’s eyes, the real ‘Love’s Martyr’”

“Love’s martyr?” I asked, “He was executed for heresy. What has that got

to do with love? It seems more like hatred of him was at work.”

“To understand, you have to know that Bruno used the word “love” in his

work Gli Heroici Furori, where the heroic lover, who is compared to Actaeon,

pursues Diana, or Divine Truth. His love is for the truth, the truth about

nature, the world, the things around us, ‘the forest’, in a sense. And as for

the word ‘martyr’, Bruno was indeed ‘martyred’ by being executed for

heresy.”

I suddenly felt extremely curious about this Gli Heroici Furori, the work

with the startling and fascinating images: the two suns, the river nymph, the

nine blind men, and the mystical urn, and now, I had learned that the work

also had a reference to the Actaeon-Diana myth, a story I knew well and had

read many times for Yuuki.

“I don’t suppose you could find Gli Heroici Furori on this too, and let me

have a look?”

“Sure, I can,” Haruki said, peering at the little screen as he searched for

the text.

He said, “For understanding the term ‘love’ in Bruno, and maybe therefore in

Shakespeare, too, the most relevant part of Gli Heroici Furori is the part showing

Actaeon catching sight of Diana; she turns him into stag, who then hunted by his

own dogs and thus he is annihilated. Which is to say that he reaches such a point

of understanding that he becomes unified with the Divine Truth he had been

searching for.”

Soon I was reading the words of Giordano Bruno himself, though translated

from the Italian:

…truth is sought as a thing inaccessible, as an object

not to be objectized, incomprehensible. But yet, to no one

does it seem possible to see the sun, the universal Apollo,

the absolute light through supreme and most excellent

species; but only its shadow, its Diana, the world, the

universe, nature, which is in things, light which is in the

opacity of matter, that is to say, so far as it shines in the

darkness.

Many of them wander amongst the aforesaid paths of

this deserted wood, very few are those who find the

fountain of Diana. Many are content to hunt for wild beasts

and things less elevated, and the greater number do not

understand why, having spread their nets to the wind, they

find their hands full of flies. Rare, I say, are the Actaeons to

whom fate has granted the power of contemplating the

nude Diana and who, entranced with the beautiful

disposition of the body of nature, and led by those two

lights, the twin splendor of Divine goodness and beauty

become transformed into stags; for they are no longer

hunters but become that which is hunted. For the ultimate

and final end of this sport, is to arrive at the acquisition of

that fugitive and wild body, so that the thief becomes the

thing stolen, the hunter becomes the thing hunted; in all

other kinds of sport, for special things, the hunter

possesses himself of those things, absorbing them with the

mouth of his own intelligence; but in that Divine and

universal one, he comes to understand to such an extent

that he becomes of necessity included, absorbed, united.

Whence from common, ordinary, civil, and popular, he

becomes wild, like a stag, an inhabitant of the woods; he

lives god-like under that grandeur of the forest; he lives in

the simple chambers of the cavernous mountains, whence

he beholds the great rivers; he vegetates intact and pure

from ordinary greed, where the speech of the Divine

converses more freely, to which so many men have aspired

who longed to taste the Divine life while upon earth, and

who with one voice have said: Ecce elongavi fugiens, et

mansi in solitudine. Thus the dogs---thoughts of Divine

things---devour Actaeon, making him dead to the vulgar

and the crowd, loosened from the knots of perturbation

from the senses, free from the fleshly prison of matter,

whence they no longer see their Diana as through a hole or

window, but having thrown down the walls to the earth, the

eye opens to a view of the whole horizon. So that he sees

all as one; he sees no more by distinctions and numbers,

which, according to the different senses, as through various

cracks, cause to be seen and understood in confusion.

He sees Amphitrite, the source of all numbers, of all

species, of all reasons, which is the monad, the real

essence of the being of all, and if he does not see it in

absolute light, he sees it in its seed, which is like unto it,

which is its image; for from the monad which is the divinity,

proceeds the this monad which is nature, the universe, the

world, where it is beheld and reflected, as the sun is in the

moon by means of which it is illuminated; he finding

himself in the hemisphere of intellectual substances. This is

that Diana, that one who is the same entity, that entity

which is comprehensible nature, in which burns the sun and

the splendor of the higher nature, according to which unity

is both the generated and the generating, the producer and

produced. Thus you can of yourself determine the mode,

the dignity and the success, which are most worthy or the

hunter and the hunted. Therefore the enthusiast boasts of

being the prey of Diana, to whom he rendered himself, and

of whom he considers himself the accepted consort, and

happy as a captive and a subject.….

“His words!” I exclaimed, so totally floored that I almost tripped over a

branch lying in the path, “they are the sort of thing---both in style and in

substance---that one doesn’t encounter every day.”

“Indeed”, said Haruki, “Bruno’s style is unique.”

“And I see,” I said, “ and though the way he puts it is a bit extreme,

through his own pursuit of the truth in nature, the sky, the stars, and more,

that Bruno could be seen as ‘Love’s Martyr’, indeed. I mean, since he was

executed for his pursuit of this ‘Diana’ as he calls nature. Can there be

further clues Lisa Reed found to connect him with the text?”

“Well, first, and most simply, the names Giordano Bruno and Torquato

Caeliano are a bit similar and are Italian. But beyond that, the meaning of

the Italian name ‘Torquato’ is a clue. This name continues to be used as an

Italian name, by the way, though it is not currently popular.”

“What is the meaning of the name Torquato, then?” I asked, curious to

learn the meaning of a name I hadn’t heard of ten minutes before.

Haruki smiled, “I know, of course, but I’ll show you on the phone, just to

make it more dramatic”.

He searched the smartphone again, “Babynamespedia.com explains that

‘its meaning is derived from the Latin wordtorquis ; torquere….. Torquatus

(Latin) is an original form of the name’. If we check the definition of the Latin

word ‘torquis’, in an online dictionary now, we get ‘chaplet’, which is another

word for a necklace, and another definition is ‘ring’,”

I was silent. A ring.:

For a brief instant, I thought of Orsino. All those “O’s” in his name!

Then there was the earring he had given me.

I wondered if I ought to tell Haruki about Orsino. What would Haruki make

of the whole thing?

But would Haruki even believe me in the first place?

No, not just Haruki, also no one else would believe me either.

I held my tongue.

“So therefore ‘Torquato’ is a sort of code word for ‘ring’ or ‘circle’, while

‘Caeliano’ could be based on the Latin word ‘Cael’” Haruki said, “Here, you

go ahead and search it this time.”

I typed in the word and read the resulting definition:

‘Cael’: heaven, sky, air, universe, world

“So” said Haruki, “putting the two names together, we get Ring + Sky or

Ring + Heavens---loosely, it could even be “ring in the sky”. In all probability,

“Torquato Caeliano” is another secretive reference to the sun by none other

than William Shakespeare!”

“My goodness!” I said.

“The idea that the sun was the ultimate source powering the earth, not coal or

fossil fuels, was a scientific idea---with origins in thermodynamics, which Bruno

was aware of in a nascent way--- that Giordano Bruno came up with,“ said Haruki,

“But Shakespeare encoded it as the line Juliet is the sun.”

“It is an amazing line, even more than has been understood” I said.

“That is why Lisa Reed asserts that ‘Torquato Caeliano’ is actually ‘Giordano

Bruno’, an Italian man who cared a great deal about the sky and the heavens, the

stars, the firmament, the universe and the position of the earth within all of these

things. To honor Bruno, it simply makes sense that Shakespeare would choose the

word for ‘sky’ as a name. Anything smaller would not have sufficed for this heretic

who spoke of the infinite and the firmament so often.

“It has never been understood how much William Shakespeare truly cared

about Giordano Bruno’s fascinating work and also how much Shakespeare was

devastated and saddened by Bruno’s terrible fate---but I’m just quoting Lisa Reed,

here, look” said Haruki.

Haruki had found her paper online at a site for academics to post their work. I

read further:

But it does seem that this book, Love’s Martyr, by “Robert

Chester”, published in 1601, the year after Bruno’s public

execution in a fire, like a phoenix being consumed in flames, was

all the disguised effort of mainly William Shakespeare himself,

who must therefore be “Robert Chester”, who says that he is

only the ‘translator’ of the original Italian work by ‘Torquato

Caeliano’. (This, incidentally, is one aspect of Shakespeare’s

artistry: he ‘translated’ Bruno’s scientific and astronomical ideas

into drama.)

But by now, we could see the old house, a vague dark object through the trees.

I gave the smartphone back to Haruki.

“Thanks” I said. We stopped while Haruki shut it off and put it away. Yuuki

looked up at me and in the moonlight, I saw him yawn. But Haruki, ever the

academic, wasn’t done yet with his lecture.

“Basically”, he said, using his flashlight to show the path clearly into the

overgrown garden, “Lisa Reed’s conclusion is that Shakespeare was motivated to

honor Bruno in a literary work, not in a drama. He put Bruno in his plays, of course,

but dramas, even published in a book, had relatively low status and were not

considered fine books. A book of poetry was quite another thing.”

“I see, sensei, “I said with a smile, “you are really getting into this, aren’t you?”

Haruki turned around and gave me a big grin that I could see even in the semi-

darkness as the beam of the flashlight played around the door, “yes,” he said, “I

guess I am.”

Then he opened the stiff old sliding door to the genkan and we went into the old

house that was so still and dark that it seemed almost completely forgotten.

Chapter 19

After Yuuki had fallen asleep, Haruki and I sat down near the lantern light again

and he poured some wine into the beautiful green cups.

“Want to read the whole poem The Phoenix and the Turtle? It’s not long.” he

said, taking out the smartphone.

“Are you sure you’re not also turning into a Shakespearean?” I asked, laughing.

“Could you still love me even if I were a Shakespearean?” he asked, smiling.

“I definitely could.” I said, “and I am curious about the poem.”

Soon I was peering down at the little screen again.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

Let the bird of loudest lay,

On the sole Arabian tree,

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou, shrieking harbinger,

Foul pre-currer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict

Every fowl of tyrant wing,

Save the eagle, feather'd king:

Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,

That defunctive music can,

Be the death-divining swan,

Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou, treble-dated crow,

That thy sable gender mak'st

With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,

'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:

Love and constancy is dead;

Phoenix and the turtle fled

In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov'd, as love in twain

Had the essence but in one;

Two distincts, division none:

Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

Distance, and no space was seen

'Twixt the turtle and his queen;

But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,

That the turtle saw his right

Flaming in the phoenix' sight:

Either was the other's mine.

Property was thus appall'd,

That the self was not the same;

Single nature's double name

Neither two nor one was call'd.

Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together;

To themselves yet either-neither,

Simple were so well compounded

That it cried how true a twain

Seemeth this concordant one!

Love hath reason, reason none

If what parts can so remain.

Whereupon it made this threne

To the phoenix and the dove,

Co-supreme and stars of love;

As chorus to their tragic scene.

THRENOS.

Beauty, truth, and rarity.

Grace in all simplicity,

Here enclos'd in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest;

And the turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:--

'Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be:

Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;

Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

“It’s not very complicated,” I said, “a funeral for a phoenix. What does it all

mean, I mean as far as Lisa Reed’s theory is concerned?”

Haruki said, “If you recall the Diana-Actaeon idea of union through love---

allegorically the search for truth---then the love for the phoenix by the turtle dove

can be understood like that, “ I think, “wait, I’ll find her paper again and let you

read it.” It took a few minutes of searching and scrolling, but soon he found it.

I looked down at the screen and read:

The same basic idea of a perfect union through love describes

the Turtle and the Phoenix: ‘so they loved as love in twain/Had the

essence but in one/Two distincts, division none;/Number there in

love was slain.’ either two nor one was called’ The alteration that

comes over the heroic lover as he changes through attaining his

love is also captured: ‘Property was thus appalled/ That the self was

not the same;/Single nature’s double name.

“I see,” I said.

Haruki continued, “Gli Heroici Furori ends with a nymph opening a “fatal urn”

and The Phoenix and the Turtle also ends with an ‘urn’: “To this urn let those

repair/ That are either true or fair;/ For these dead birds sigh a prayer.” This time,

the urn is a funeral urn, encasing the ashes of the Phoenix and the Turtle. The urn

at the end of Heroici Furori cannot be opened until ‘lofty wisdom, noble chastity

and loveliness with these combined/ Shall set their hands to it’. The Phoenix and

the Turtle contains a phrase that echoes this situation: “Beauty, Truth and Rarity,/

Grace in all simplicity/ Here enclos’d in cinders lie”;

“It does seem like the poem does definitely echo Gli Heroici Furori”, I said.

Haruki poured me some more wine, “Giordano Bruno is the Phoenix. Dying in a

hot fire, like a phoenix, Bruno can also be associated, through his own new and

thermodynamic version of heliocentrism, with the sun, and the phoenix, in myth, is

indeed a solar bird” he said, and. probably, also, Shakespeare hoped that Bruno’s

ideas would be reborn one day, a phoenix being born from the ashes.

“If Bruno is the ‘Phoenix’, then the ‘Turtle’ must be Shakespeare himself” I said.

“I have heard that turtledoves were a traditional symbol of faithful love in poetry.

Shakespeare could have seen himself as another heroic lover, pursuing the Divine

Truth, which he perceives in Bruno’s ideas, through writing his own poetry.”

“Exactly” said Haruki, taking a sip of wine, “Shakespeare remained very loyal

to Bruno’s ideas, and he also must have known that the true significance of Bruno

to his work would remain a secret until long after his own death. The two ideas are

combined concisely in the sentence: ‘And the Turtle’s loyal breast/ To eternity doth

rest’”.

Haruki had put the poem back onto the screen of the smartphone.

“Look at this beautiful phrase ‘stars of love’” he said, “which echoes Bruno’s

important and radical idea that the sun is a star; while ‘love’ is the pursuit of the

heroic lover, the pursuer of truth, in Eroici Furori.”

“’Stars of love’”, I repeated the beautiful phrase, “such a brief phrase---yet it

contains so much, but covertly, in the way of affectionate allusions to Bruno,” I

said with much admiration.

“Shakespeare was a master at that,” said Haruki, pouring the last bit of wine

into both of our dark green cups and shutting off the smartphone.

“Haruki,” I started laughing and drank my wine down in one gulp; I was more

than slightly drunk, too, by now, “I do believe that not just you, but I’m also

turning into a Shakespearean now!”

Chapter 20

The next morning, Yuuki couldn’t wait to go back to the Uedas to play shogi

again and use Haruka’s game console. He ate two rice balls quickly and started

asking us when we would leave.

I wanted to go, of course, but I wanted to explore the old house a little first,

since it seemed we would be leaving before long.

“Why don’t you go first?” I said to Haruki, “and I’ll catch up to you later? I’ll wash

the dishes a bit and fold up the sleeping bags. You should go and make some

contacts without delay.”

Haruki agreed at once. “I’ll leave my computer and flash disk here, though. I

won’t need them yet.”

A few minutes later they had left. I went straight into the next room, the room

with the most furniture and boxes. I was eager to look through the drawers and

boxes for old items. I love old, fantastical antique and out of date things made of

wood, clay or cotton, though I feared that any clothing that was stored would likely

have holes in it made by hungry insects. I opened one drawer in an old chest of

drawers and found an ink stand and a few brushes. Beside it was something

wrapped in a page from a newspaper. Unfurling the newspaper, I found two old

hina dolls, dressed in faded orange silk. One was the old man, an august figure

with a long white beard. The other was a musician, a drummer, with his tiny hand

bent above his shoulder to strike a drum that was no longer there. I wanted to try

the next drawer too, and I was hoping, above all, for stacks of old indigo clothing,

mompei pants, yukatas, patched hanten coats, but when I opened the drawer only

a single stick-like item rolled toward me. I picked it up. It was an old dusty bamboo

flute, a shinobue. I wiped it off on my sleeve and tried to make a sound by blowing

over the top of the hole. I had never played one before, but something about its

soft luster appealed to me. I decided to ask Haruki later if I could keep it.

My mind, ever inclined toward daydreaming and idleness, was straying off the

unpleasant and taxing Vector issue, I realized. I was definitely not cut out for

spying, fleeing or dodging sinister people. I sighed. I would have to go. Although I

could see that there were more drawers and boxes to open!

Did the agents at Vector, wherever they were, realize how much they were

annoying me at the moment?

I went back to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Rice balls hardly need dishes; that

is why they are so easy to eat, so there were only cups of water to rinse out. The

old plastic bucket was full of water from the river.

The water caught the light in an odd way. Something about the color of the

water did not look right.

A face wavered in the surface of the water, like a reflection, but it was not my

reflection.

I stared. It was fascinating.

The face of the ghostly Orsino appeared.

I had never had any contact with him before while I was awake. This was a

triumphant moment! My heart filled with joy to see him.

I looked at his face as intently as I could, and I tried to smile and catch his eye.

Could he see me?

But he looked only somber. He closed his eyes and put his ghostly wrist to his

forehead. His mouth was a frown. This was a tragic pose.

Why?

Was this a mischievous joke?

He opened his eyes and his mouth formed a word.

Again, and again, and again.

The same word. It was easy enough-----it was shocking enough--- to read his lips.

The silence of the room only made the word echo louder in my mind.

The word was as unmistakable as it was terrifying.

“Run”.

“Run”.

“Run”.

The water rippled slightly and the reflection quickly disappeared in the water, as

if a switch had turned it off.

The water in the bucket was now still and colorless again.

I can be slow and realizations can dawn on me only after time has passed. I’m

not naturally quick.

But the feeling of sudden nausea and rising panic in my stomach and throat was

so overwhelming that I knew my cautious, fearful, dreamy brain was processing

this message as fast as it could and, moreover, efficiently broadcasting the

message to every cell in my body. My ghost had found a way to warn me.

“Run”.

But my legs felt as if they had turned to lead; my hands were numb.

“Run”.

. Fighting the sensations of nausea and paralysis, I focused on the small tasks at

hand. I asked my brain simple, logical questions and the answers came back slowly

but clearly, like obedient little doves returning from a long journey.

The best way out?

Through the back garden.

What to bring?

The flash disk with Vector’s files.

What else?

Something else?

Yes.

The fox mask!

Now!

Amazingly, my feet seemed to independently take these simple orders from my

brain very calmly. I walked over to Haruki’s backpack and retrieved the flash disk. I

got my bag, with its long strap, and put the flash drive in it, then put the strap over

my shoulder and diagonally around my body so I would be able to run. I got the fox

mask from the floor where Yuuki had been playing with it and shoved it into the

bag. I picked up my shoes from in front of the front door and walked through the

house to the back, where I slid open an old sliding glass door. The frame was made

of wood which had warped a bit over the years of neglect, but I heaved it enough

to slip through the opening, put my loafers on and ran through the tangled

overgrown garden.

Loafers, the shoes I wore to teach, weren’t the ideal running shoe at all, but that

was all I had.

I waited behind a bush for a second. I wanted to listen very carefully to each

sound I could hear. Especially, of course, I needed to listen for the sound of a car. I

knew they would come in a car. One thing I had learned all these years was that

only Haruki and I were crazy enough to walk everywhere. Everyone else drove.

But there was no sound.

Nothing.

Not yet.

Soon?

I would be gone by the time they got here.

I would have to be.

I decided to avoid the road as much as possible by going into the forest and

finding the path to Muroji. I thought I knew vaguely where it was.

Turning around and scanning the woods, I wondered where I would find the path.

What if Haruki and Yuuki suddenly returned home?

I would have to call Haruki. I hadn’t used my cell phone for a while, but it was in

my bag. I took it out and turned it on.

There was a buzzing sound as the cell phone came on. And then, right at the

same time, there was another sort of humming sound, an engine slowing down.

The face of the ghost in the water popped into my mind. He drew a finger across

his throat and raised his eyebrows.

My over-active and dramatic imagination?

Or was he communicating with me using telepathy in a new stylish and ghostly

way?

Ha! I would never know where my brain started and his left off.

Never mind. Here, before me, was a challenge and I was more than ready.

Let this strange comedy begin, I thought a bit grimly.

This may be an odd moment to confess that I’m a huge fan of rap music. It was

Nami who had introduced me to the world of rap music. She had many favorite

artists she liked to listen to, from all over the world. And I had heard many songs I

liked too.

What I had learned from these songs was that rappers don’t give up. Rappers

don’t get scared. Rappers, tough and cool, always know what to say and do. If I

imagined myself, after all, on a stage, in other words, if this was going to be a

performance, instead of a scene of panic and fleeing, then it was possible that I

was going to come out the winner.

That was all there was to it.

I had spent some time on the stage already in some of my best, very, very best

dreams.

This mountain ridge, this autumn forest, they were both just another stage.

In someone else’s reality, on someone else’s page.

I took a deep breath and plunged into the woods.

If the ghostly image of my lover had been correct then I was in serious danger.

But the world of the stage, even just a dreamy one in my mind, was more powerful

than my fears and, hopefully, it would prove to be more powerful even than Vector.

I started running. I was wearing a black knee-length skirt and a green cardigan,

the clothes I had been wearing to the school two days before. The skirt gathered

awkwardly around my knees. My bag thumped against my ribs.

God.

Not a comedy, but a lowly farce.

The cell phone call to Haruki would have to wait until I felt safer.

Would I find a place where I would feel safer?

Where exactly was that?

I saw a few pine trees in a group and beside them was the footpath I had seen a

few days before. I was not running anymore.

Besides, if anyone saw me, would I not look like a hiker or someone out to enjoy

the fall leaves?

Probably, actually, I hated to admit it, but Vector would know better than that.

The trick was to get to Muroji temple and call Haruki.

As soon as possible.

If we were together in an old, somber, decorous, eternal, religious place like

that, under the divine protection of special powers, everything---yes,

everything!---- would be fine.

Right?

Chapter 21

The path began to climb uphill and I turned around to survey the woods and

more importantly, the road beyond them. Sure enough, a small gray car was

stopping at the very spot where the path began. A man was getting out of the car.

He was powerfully built and from the way he stood, I could guess that he was not

old, but quite a bit younger than me.

Great.

I continued to half run, half walk up the sloping hill. The path was no longer

following the slope straight up, but instead it twisted and turned.

I turned to look back again.

From the way his face was angled and the speed at which he was jogging along

the path, I could see that it was quite clear that the man had spotted me and was

following me as fast as he could.

I started waking faster, but my loafers slipped on rocks and leaves and my

progress was slow compared to the muscular young man who was gaining on me. I

could see now that he was wearing a tight-fitting black business suit.

Why did Vector always send well-dressed people to hunt me down?

His face now became clear. He looked quite determined. His hair was neatly

trimmed, his cheeks were chubby and his eyes looked cold. He was now so close

that I could even see that he was wearing white sneakers, which looked all wrong

with the suit.

Never mind about that!

Out of fear, my brain had stopped functioning, and I was now criticizing his

wardrobe!

Now it was really time to panic.

I noticed that I was still clutching my cell phone. I envisioned him getting closer

within the next few minutes---unbearably closer---and then I would throw my mean

little cell phone at him, aiming for his forehead.

That would stop him for about two seconds.

Or.

I could throw something else. This thought followed naturally. It was as if the

trees had whispered it to me suddenly, for in my panic and self-consciousness, I

had definitely forgotten all about it.

The fox mask.

Of course.

Without the stage, theater, drama, artifice, magic and disguise I knew I was lost.

And the mask, from this world and yet also belonging to another, as I had been

told, was the both the way out and the way forward.

But would it have any effect?

Was it really magical?

There was only one way to find out!

I hurried forward while unzipping my bag. Thrusting the cell phone down inside, I

pulled the fox mask out in almost one motion.

And then I whirled around and stopped. The man was only 30 meters away. He

was puffing with effort.

I looked down and saw the large sharp edge of a stone emerging from a pile of

dried brown leaves.

Perfect. Go for it.

I raised my arm and threw the fox mask as hard as I could against this stone.

It shattered with a crash and pieces of white clay splotched with gray, blue and

red paint flew up and around in all directions.

Then silence and nothing.

The man was quite near and I turned, feeling a sense of dread and

disappointment, to at least flee as far as I could. He would have to pursue me till

he caught me, since I was not going to give up.

But, nevertheless, in my heart, I felt a sickness, a hollow space.

Bitter, dreadful failure.

The mask had failed.

The ghost had been wrong.

This was no magic.

This was either the wrong mask, which was possible, or it had been a lie.

No, I corrected myself, not a lie. It had not been a lie.

A mistake, perhaps, a misunderstanding, maybe, but not a lie.

Orsino would not lie to me.

I heard the leaves crunching behind me as the footsteps of my pursuer came

closer. I decided to turn and face him and perhaps punch or kick him appropriately,

though I had little confidence in my fighting abilities.

I whirled around again.

The young man stopped.

I watched his face.

He looked victorious and started striding towards me. I started to feel nauseous.

I couldn’t ward off my sense of fear any longer and my body was giving in to it; my

knees were starting to feel shaky and my hands cold. And my pulse seemed so

loud in my ears; I could feel my heart beating in terror.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You are Mari Muramatsu? I have orders to bring you along with me.”

I sat down and hugged my bag to my stomach to protect it. The young man

looked amused, as though he were dealing with a stubborn five-year old.

I looked up at him and scowled as hard as I could. I wanted to cry. The whole

adventure was ending in a horrible failure which seemed like my fault. I had been

stupid enough to want to stay by myself in the house to rummage through drawers

of forgotten junk, and now I had to face this evil agent alone.

Would he even let me live, and for how long, exactly?

But suddenly, quite inexplicably, his expression changed; his mouth sagged

open and his unintelligent face rapidly altered its every line.

Something behind me was dismaying him..

I heard the whirring rush of a fast breeze and felt something with fur graze my

hunched-over shoulder, there was a strange hardness and muscularity to the form,

but I couldn’t gather more in the fleeting second it touched me.

Though glancing past me, its speed and hardness gave me a feeling of power,

destabilizing, shocking, frightening power.

Then it jumped on the young man, and I saw it was a kind of small brown wolf. It

bit his hand very hard. The man stopped and screamed.

There was another whirring sound behind me and I turned to see another small

wolf also running, and jump up to attack the man.

It was a bit funny.

The wolves were the smallest wolves I had ever seen, not that I had seen many

wolves, of course, maybe in zoos here or there once or twice. These were the size

of German Shepherd dogs. In fact, they might be dogs, I realized. The word “wolf”

had just naturally taken form in my brain right away when I saw the first one, but I

knew---everyone knew—that nihonokami, the Honshu wolf---had been extinct for

over a hundred years.

They could not be wolves, therefore.

Could they?

Whatever they were, dogs or wolves, the ferocious pair were successfully

preventing the young, muscular man from moving at all. When he swatted one

away for a moment, it merely returned and seized a new part of his body: mostly

the little wolves focused on the man’s legs. His suit looked ruined. One jumped and

bit him on the arm quite hard. The man tried very hard to choke or squeeze the

wolves in turn, but this was impossible for him to do; they’d bite him and wriggle

free then attack again. These little wolves had powerful neck muscles and sharp

teeth, and the animals did not stop biting the man or run away.

His hands were soon bitten and bloody, his slacks ripped.

There was nothing I could do about that. The wolves were very tenacious.

Sometimes they reached his neck and grazed the skin there, leaving red marks. It

looked quite dangerous and horrible. I hoped he would be all right after all.

But something told me that I could not, should not, help him.

I stood up and lightly brushed the leaves off my skirt. The situation had turned

so wonderfully in my favor that I couldn’t help but give this horrible young agent

sent by Victor a brief but insincere glance of pity.

He had fallen on the ground and the wolves were pawing his stomach and

growling. He was too busy groaning and trying to roll onto his stomach to pay

attention to me.

Good.

I turned around, and walked away.

The fox mask!

A success after all!!

Chapter 22

Vector could easily send more agents, I realized. And I did not have another fox

mask. I wanted to call Haruki and get to the temple as soon as I could and meet

him there. This was his adventure, his flash disk, his secrets. His plan was to meet

some journalists and hand over the flash disk. My goal was to help make sure that

happened and to stay safe in the process. Haruki had told me not to call him on

Eiji’s cell phone unless it was an emergency. Obviously Vector had finally guessed

where we were and my cell phone was probably being tracked; the moment I used

it, it meant that Eiji’s cell phone might become another number they would track

and Haruki wouldn’t be able to use it easily and anonymously anymore.

But this was an emergency and there was no choice.

I pressed the button to turn it on without breaking my stride. Eiji’s smartphone

number was written on a piece of paper in my purse and I had to stop briefly and

dial.

Haruki answered after a few seconds.

“They found me!” I said.

“What?! Are you O.K?”

“Yes. I got away. I’m at Muroji, well, I’m near it, in the woods, on a trail.”

“Are you on the hilly part yet?”

“Yes.”

“Keep going up, all the way. Soon you’ll get to the top of the little mountain

there. That is the top part of Muroji; there are several wooden buildings up there, a

small prayer altar hall and a stall to buy amulets. Turn off your cell phone and try

to find a place to hide among the buildings. You’ll see stairs leading down, but

don’t go down yet. I’ll come up and find you.”

“But you said there are 700 stairs! Where’s Yuuki by the way?”

“We’ve just arrived at the Uedas. I leave now, and let him stay here. Shogannai

about the 700 steps, Mari! I’ll be there soon! Turn off your mobile now. ‘Bye and

be careful!”

I pressed the off button.

Haruki could be so bossy, but it was one reason I loved him.

The hill was getting steeper and becoming a rocky, tree-covered mountain of

modest proportions. I struggled up the path lined with rocks as it zig-zagged up. It

was so steep that I had to use small branches or shrubs to scrabble up or steady

my balance in some places. I cursed my slippery loafers, so inadequate for the job.

Looking down and back, I couldn’t see far down the mountain at all, so I had no

idea what had happened to the Vector agent and the wolves. But, I told myself,

trying to think positively, I could not hear anyone coming after me, nor could I see

anyone.

Was I safe for now?

After another few minutes, I scrambled over a rocky ledge that turned into a

wider and flatter wooded area. Another ten meters ahead, I saw some gray, bare

wooden buildings, boxy and plain, with sloped and curved roofs of slate. Huge

green cypress trees rose mystically all around, and I glanced around for a place to

wait where I could be inconspicuous. This mountain-top area of the temple was not

big, with only three small buildings and a few small gravel paths.

Except for a monk clad in white inside the little stall where people could buy

amulets and prayer beads, I saw no one else around except an older woman

dressed in a yellow jersey, black pants, and a costume jewelry necklace slowly

making her way into an open hall with a prayer altar inside. I decided to follow her.

I would be better protected if I were not all alone.

It was then that I began to hear the drums, the flute, the tapping of tabi-clad

feet on tatami,

Softly at first.

Then louder.

Why had I not noticed them before?

The hall had no door, just wide steps leading up to a large doorway. There were

twenty or thirty pairs of shoes on the steps.

People were inside.

Chanting. Drums. The fu-uuuu—uuu of the flute.

A play, I supposed. Sometimes plays were performed at shrines and temples.

I kicked off my loafers and stepped inside. There was a small wooden fence

separating a wooden hallway from the large tatami floor.

Spectators sat on the tatami mat floor and watched an actor dressed like a

monk take delicate steps and stop in front of a covered rack where a folded-

kimono hung. The monk picked the kimono off the rack and a woman with a mask

and long hair emerged from behind the rack.

The singers chanted in archaic Japanese. I had no idea what the plot was about.

Plays and fiction were the lies that told the truth, one of my professors had told me

long ago in college. What truth, I wondered idly, was embedded in this sparse Noh

play?

Evidently, I had missed quite a bit of the action already. The movements of the

players across the floor were slow and methodical, but eerie and other-worldly.

Almost all props and extraneous things were unnecessary here. The stage was

bare except for the rack. The wooden mask of the woman, with its frozen but

complex expression, had a mesmerizing effect. I couldn’t take my eyes off this

mask, as if the answers to the depthless mysteries of the play were caught and

condensed within it, if only it could be interpreted properly.

It was the second time that day I had had to deal with a mask.

All masks were magic, in one way or another, that was clear, but I certainly

wasn’t understanding much of the plot, what little there seemed to be, at all.

As if she had read my mind, the lady in black and yellow turned toward me and

smiled. I smiled back. She offered me her play program, just a small piece of

folded white rice paper with spare black calligraphy. I took it and read it briefly. The

play was called Miwa:

A monk named Genpin becomes friends with a woman who asks him

if she can borrow one of his kimonos because she is cold. He gives her

the kimono and she returns to her home, telling him that she will

return it to him if he will visit her in her cottage at the foot of Mt. Miwa

the next day. When he goes looking for her cottage the next day, he

finds the kimono hanging on a tree. From behind the tree steps a spirit,

the spirit of the woman who had visited him before. Her real identity is

a ghost, the spirit of the mountain. She enacts, in dance and song, a

scene in the life of a goddess for him. The play ends as he wakes to

find that everything has been a dream.

I tried to hand back the piece of paper to the woman dressed in black and

yellow, but she only smiled and whispered “douzo”, so I knew I ought to keep it

and I pushed it into my pocket

The action---it was so solitary, so slow, so deliberate----on the stage, which

wasn’t a stage at all, but just the same tatami mat we were all sitting on,

continued. The ghost was dancing in slow circles.

The singers chanted; the drums kept the beat going.

The Noh play seemed to make time stop.

I focused on the play without consciously trying to understand it; now it seemed

to whisper, but underneath everything, the sounds and the actions, I picked up

something more reassuring.

A sort of faith.

It is on your side, not theirs, after all.

Vector could never have this, would not know what to do with it, or what it was

for.

Did I know?

I thought I did, but now, after all, the magic trance lifted away almost at once

with that word “Vector”..

Would Haruki be here soon? Would he find me in here? Should I be waiting

outside?

How much time had passed? I could stand it no longer, the not knowing, the fear

of who was outside.

I quietly stood up, keeping my body bent so as to seem small and unobtrusive. I

backed away slowly to the entranceway, framed in blue daylight. I found my shoes.

Outside, there was no one. Dry leaves blew in the wind.

I walked over to the long stairway leading down the mountain. Haruki had said

there were 700 stone steps. It didn’t look like all of them were visible from the top.

The steps seemed to end at the bridge. But probably the path continued on the

other side of the bridge and it was just that I couldn’t see it from the top.

Maybe 300 stairs, about half, were visible from the top?

Then a handsome man in a familiar blue shirt walked hurriedly onto the stone

bridge.

Haruki!

I recognized him at once. He looked serious and poised, head bent as he

ascended the steps.

Feeling relieved, I wanted to clap and cheer. I could feel myself smiling. I began

to relax and my panic started to subside.

Two sounds, like the flutes, but different, clearly very different, reached me then.

These natural sounds, like the sound of rain falling and pooling, did not and

could not ever belong to the stage.

Recognizing what the sounds were, I felt my heart, calm until now, stop still.

Two wolves were howling. The sound was coming from the slope where I had left

the agent.

Then they stopped howling and there was silence all around.

Chapter 23

I stood at the top of the 700 stone steps and watched Haruki’ climbing up, while

I tried to calmly gather my knowledge and get a full perspective of my situation.

What did I know?

I knew that I was getting some help from the non-material world. The fox mask,

the face in the bucket of water, and the twin wolves had proved that. But this help

wasn’t unlimited or infinite. It was almost wholly circumscribed by the rules and

physical laws governing matter, conditions found only in the material world. What I

could see was that there were some spaces the material rules could be bent or

pried open slightly, that is to say there was some sort of slippage, or some

unexplainable gaps, where the non-material world seeped in or simply stole in

where small spaces, like the bizarre phenomena of quantum physics, allowed it to.

I was gently---I hoped it was gently, and not pressingly or frantically, or, worst of

all, madly---- entangled between the material world and the parallel non-material

world known in Japan as the world of mu.

Haruki had once explained to me that quantum mechanics theoretically allows

for the spirit world, but at the very same time, made it highly unlikely that

encounters between the two worlds would occur.

But “unlikely” didn’t mean “impossible”.

I would have to negotiate between the two, jumping from one to the other. In

fact, my friendship, or rather, my romance, with the spirit on the stage had already

given me a chance to practice this technique, though in a more leisurely and less

dangerous way than now, and I was sure that my experience would be useful.

Knowing this, then, I should be able to draw some conclusions from inside this

strange box I now found myself in.

For if I could get inside this strange situation, a kind of a puzzle box, then it

followed that I should be able to get out as well.

It was necessary.

Focus.

Behind me, the trees blew gently in the wind. No one was visible except for the

monk in the amulet stall. I heard the faint drums of the Noh performance. Looking

down, I saw Haruki ascending, faster now. Did he see me? Two or three hundred

steps remained until he would reach the top. Then what?

I waved. He waved. I saw him smile.

Focus, I told myself; his relaxing sense of happiness was all wrong now.

The wolves had howled for a reason, or rather, I had heard them for a reason.

Their cries had been momentary. The wolves, then, were not really there on the

slope leading down on the other side from the top of the temple. These cries were

supernatural warnings, as much as I was going to get now, as much as I could

expect to get in this material world.

The slope was the issue now, then, the slope was the place where we should not

go, Haruki and I. Either the Vector agent had freed himself from the wolves or

another Vector agent had joined him and freed him. Or maybe the wolves had just

dissolved into air. In any case, the slope down toward the house, the path nearby,

and probably the road too were not safe now. The stairs in front of me were

therefore our way out. Without waiting for another millisecond, I started down the

steps, as fast as I could safely go.

The stairs had been made by carefully stacking large stones intricately and

suitably. They were an engineering feat in themselves. I remembered that Haruki

had told me that some buildings in Muroji dated back to the Heian era, a thousand

years ago. The stairs were beautiful and perfect, geared toward the contemplative

lives of innumerable pilgrims and monks, but hard to race down in modern loafers.

Haruki noticed me running down and stopped climbing.

In a few minutes, we were 10 meters apart. With a cry, I hurtled my body into

Haruki, but the momentum I had built up almost pushed him over.

He smiled and turned the braking action of his body into a welcoming hug.

“Mari, daijoubu?!”

“I’m all right”, I said quickly. “but we mustn’t stay here!” I shouted, pulling

myself free and racing ahead down the stairs so he would follow.

“Are you sure? I mean they could just as well be waiting at the front of Muroji too

by now, if they were at the house.”

“Yes, I’m very sure”, I said, “Very.”

We started down the steps, as quickly as we could without losing our balance.

Soon we were on the bridge. I glanced up and saw two men at the top of the

stairs. Were they agents from Vector or were they members of the Noh play

audience? From this distance, I could not tell if one of the men was the one who

had chased me. They paused and looked at us, then started rushing down the

steps after us. This time, there were no wolves in sight to help us.

On the other side of the bridge, the steps leading down plunged down directly in

another straight flight, as the ones above did down to the bridge. However, looking

up, I noticed that this flight of steps was not visible from the first flight of steps. In

addition, it was much shorter, maybe only 200 steps instead of 400. We rushed

down.

“Should we hide in the woods?” I asked. Maybe some more magical wolves

would appear, although I had no more fox masks to conjure them up.

“I have a better idea”, said Haruki.

By now we were at a tall red round building with five levels of roofs. Tall trees

surrounded the scene.

“Look down there”, Haruki pointed.

Further along down the next flight steps, which were now wide and grandly

proportioned, I saw an old wooden building, low and naturally faded. The large roof

curved gracefully at the corners, a perfectly-proportioned temple building.

“Let’s go inside,” he said,

“Wait”, I said, “is that a good idea? We could get trapped in there.”

“The woods might be better?” Haruki hesitated.

“Well….” I thought of my slippery shoes and the damp leaves and mud.

“No,” said Haruki decisively, “not with two of us. We’d be easily spotted in the

woods. Probably among the statues in that building might be a hiding place. I

hope. I think so. I often visited it in the past. Let’s try at least. I think there’s an exit

out the back if things are too difficult.”

“OK”, I said, “Let’s try it inside. We’re running out of time.”

Four or five pairs of shoes were lined up outside the door. The temple must have

a beautiful very old wooden polished floor. Shoes were taken off to avoid damaging

it.

“Carry your shoes in with you”, said Haruki.

“I figured that one out”, I said, picking them up.

The space inside was divided into two by a short wooden fence. Behind the

fence there was row of large wooden statues; these were Buddhist deities or

warriors of some sort in various theatrically martial poses.

“The Twelve Divine Generals of Yakushi Buddha. Heian ere.”, said Haruki,

dashing past them, “Hurry up”, he added.

We came to the other end of the room. There was a large table with a few books

and pamphlets about the temple, and small amulets for sale. A middle-aged

woman with very neat short hair and a beige sweater sat behind the desk. Haruki

didn’t return her greeting.

“We need help”, he said quickly, sounding decisive.

The formal smile disappeared from her face. She looked wary.

“Help?”

“We need a place to hide in here. There are some people looking for us, not the

police. Will you help us? Soon it will be too late.”

“If there is any trouble…?” Now she looked more worried.

“Call whomever you like; we’ll surrender to them, and, by the way, we’ve done

nothing wrong, but hide us first. Please. I’m a professor of astronomy at Kubatsu

University,” Haruki hurriedly handed her his business card, “I’ve found out some

secret information and some people, bad people, don’t want me to tell anyone.”

She read the meishi and looked at us one more time, and her face changed its

expression suddenly. I realized that Haruki had succeeded in convincing her.

“Yes”, she said, “This table is quite large and you can both fit; the table cloth will

hide you well. Come behind the table while I go and distract the visitors for a bit.

Duck down when they are looking at the statues while I deliver my lecture.”

She got up and went to the fence. It was clear that she often played the part of a

tour guide.

Two young women in fashionable jeans and high-heeled boots, an elderly couple

in thick cloth jackets and a balding, scholarly-looking man in his early 50s holding

a bag of books he had just bought were milling around near the fence and looking

carefully at the statues.

“Please allow me to tell you all a little about the statues of the attendants on the

Yakushi Nyorai, the healing Buddha”, said the woman in the sweater, approaching

the scholarly-looking man. The other visitors edged closer to her to hear better.

“Quick”, said Haruki, pulling me over behind the table.

We ducked down and crawled as quietly as we could under the table. It was

surprisingly spacious underneath, still we had to bow our heads a bit..

“The statues date from the Heian period and each one is carved out of single

pieces of cypress wood. The relatively small heads of the figures are one

characteristic of Heian-era Buddhist sculpture. Early on, the Twelve Divine

Generals became associated with the twelve animal signs of the Chinese

Zodiac….”

The group seemed to drift off to the far side of the room, and we couldn’t hear

more of her lecture.

Time, only a little time, passed, maybe five minutes. Haruki and I remained

motionless and quiet, sitting on the cold wooden floor.

The woman returned to her seat. Dimly, we saw her legs, beige slacks and thick-

soled rubber indoor shoes, in front of us.

The table cloth, made of thick polyester I guessed, extended all over the table,

on all four sides, so it was too dark for us to see each other very well. We waited in

silence.

We didn’t have to wait long.

We heard footsteps and voices.

“Hello”, said the woman in her professional greeting voice, “Would you like some

information about Muroji or the Twelve Divine Generals?”

“To tell you the truth, we are from the domestic undercover police unit”, said a

man’s voice.

Another man spoke, in a slightly deeper voice. He sounded very serious and

professional.

“We are looking for a middle-aged couple who are fleeing from a serious crime.

According to some witnesses, the couple has been spotted around here. We are

wondering if you have seen them. Did they come in here?”

“Police?” said the woman behind the desk, pausing, “Oh my goodness, well, so

many couples come and go here.”

“These people are unmistakably middle-aged. She may be wearing a black

skirt”, said the first one, who sounded younger.

Was he the one who had been chasing me?

“Well, if you are the police---and I don’t doubt it for a moment---then it’s

customary for you to show your identification. A badge or card or something, first.

Is that not so?”, said the woman carefully and precisely, speaking like a true

official.

“A badge, yes of course”, said the younger man, rather hesitantly.

“You see”, said the older one, “we have our IDs usually always with us, but

unfortunately, just today we forgot them in our unmarked police car”, said the man

with the deeper voice.

“It’s parked down the mountain near the entrance to the temple. It would take

us a while to get them.”

“Oh, that is so extremely inconvenient!”, said the woman “after all, the really

awful thing I have heard somewhere---maybe it was on TV, since I’m really

addicted to those detective dramas--- is that impersonating the police is some sort

of a felony. But I’m sure you know all about that, since you are actually the police.”

“Indeed we do know that”, said the man with the lower voice in a hurried

manner, “well, we’d just like to thank you for your time today, but if you do see a

middle-aged couple, perhaps looking like they’re in a hurry, please do call the

police and inform them---us---I mean.”

“Oh, so you will be giving me a number to call, then, and your names too, Mr.---

uh?” asked the woman pleasantly, sounding as if she were getting ready to take

the information down.

“No----not right now”, said the older man officiously, “We will return later.”

“I see. Of course,” said the woman slowly and carefully. Her voice was ever more

clipped and precise and correct.

If I hadn’t been so frightened, I might have started laughing, which would have

been stupid.

“Just call the regular police, please. We are all working together on this

important case, an international case, you see.”

“I’ll be very sure to do so” said the woman.

We heard the men walk away, but Haruki gently pressed my arm in a sign that I

interpreted as “stay”. In fact, I knew we had little choice but to stay. The men

might or might not suspect us of hiding somewhere inside this Heian era temple,

but surely they would be wandering around near the steps and in the woods for a

while, hoping to spot us.

If the woman at the table left her post for a while, there was a good chance they

would quickly return and start hunting around for us inside this wooden building.

And, with Vector’s power, they actually could get the real police to come and show

authentic badges and search the place for us.

We were trapped.

We heard the woman’s voice again. This time, a kind, soft voice.

“Grandmother!”

She was almost shouting.

“Grandmother! It’s so nice to hear your voice again! It’s me, Sayuri. It’s been a

while. I know you just got out of the hospital; I heard from Mom. How are you? Are

you feeling better after your little accident?”

There was a pause. Sayuri said “Oh!” and “That’s good” a few times.

Why was she calling grandma now?

“Grandmother! I’m glad you are feeling better, of course, but it’s not a good idea

to go out just yet. Seriously, you should stay where you are for now.”

I had to suppose, now, that this was some sort of coded message. Sayuri was

very clever. Obviously those addictive detective dramas had filled her head with

useful tricks as well as legal information.

“On the other hand, grandmother, if anyone shows up then don’t be shy. Greet

them properly!”

There was a pause.

“I’m sure you know what I mean. After all, you’re not that sick!”

Haruki pressed my arm again.

“Well, good-bye, grandmother! I have to go now. I’m calling you at work. Some

people have JUST arrived.”

There was something odd about her voice. It was so exaggerated.

Haruki’s hand froze on mine. Footsteps thudded across the floor. They seemed

to last forever. I prayed that they were just ordinary tourists.

“Hello, again” said Sayuri brightly, “have you had any luck in finding the couple

you’ve been searching for?”

“Not yet.”

My heart almost stopped when I recognized the voice of one of the men who had

been looking for us. It was the one who sounded younger.

“We’d just like to take a casual look around, if you don’t mind. This is not really a

search, so we realized just now that we won’t need an official badge, or anything.

Like any tourists, we just want to see the lovely Heian era art and architecture

properly. It’s perfectly legal for us to just look around”, said the older man in his

smooth deep voice.

“Oh”, I see,” said Sayuri, “Well, I guess that would be fine of course.”.

“We’d like to see behind that beautiful screen over there. That really is an

amazing screen.”

“The screen is just blocking off the view of the back entrance. There is a little

door which leads to a little staircase down the back. It was a private entrance for

the monks, I think.”

“It sounds most interesting. I’m really dying to see it”, said the younger man.

“The screen’s not old. Actually, not even 20 years old.”

“Let me have a look anyway”, said the younger man. We heard him going over,

but he soon returned.

“You were right”, he said, “that screen was nothing special after all.”

There was a tense pause.

Suddenly something heavy landed on the floor near my foot.

“I dropped my wallet. Oops. I’m always so clumsy whenever I visit Buddhist

temples. These old places basically make me terribly nervous, all the treasures,

the delicate art, and I just don’t have the attention span I need to appreciate all

the stuff,” said the older man in a drawling, confident way, “so I drop things.”

We saw the tablecloth moved awkwardly as his hand reached down to grope

around.

Then his fingers appeared under the cloth and he suddenly pulled the material

up with a jerk. His head, closely cropped and broad, darted in athletically under the

cloth and since the cloth was pulled up, there was enough light for us to see him

gaping in satisfaction at finding us. He jerked the edge of the tablecloth up and

rested it on the table. We saw him grinning as he squatted down to study us.

“Ho ho! This is most interesting! Have a look!”

We had been found! Vector had succeeded!

I was starting to feel nauseous. Were my last moments on this earth now about

to take place? These would be my last breaths, the last time I moved my left hand,

the last time I saw Haruki…..

Then all of a sudden, in the middle of my morbid daydream, there was a dull

thud, though not touching me. I saw a quick blur as something green and heavy

landed on the back of the Vector agent’s broad head. He suddenly keeled over and

sprawled on his side. He moaned and lay completely still.

Sayuri had hit him with the green brass vase. It was indeed true, as he had

confessed, that the treasures in Buddhist temples did not seem to agree with him.

That much was clear.

Yet, I hoped very much that he wasn’t dead. Probably he wasn’t. I thought I

could see his chest moving as he breathed.

Greet them properly.

Did this count as a proper greeting?

I supposed that it did.

“What are you waiting for?” yelled Haruki at me, lunging for the leg of the other

man, who was backing away defensively and looking surprised by this turn of

events, “Help me tackle him!”

Sayuri, a true fighter, was already swinging the green bronze vase again, ready

to connect with the side of the second man’s head, but the man caught her wrist

and held it in mid swing.

His hands!

I noticed the dried blood on his skin, the scratches and bite marks from the tiny

wolves.

Haruki was standing up now, beside the table. He grabbed the man’s arms.

Sayuri lost her grip on her makeshift weapon as she wrenched her wrists free

and the heavy brass vase clattered to the floor.

Haruki was not very athletic, and the man was younger and a bit more muscular.

He twisted his powerful arms free easily and started to punch Haruki in the

stomach. I could see that Sayuri and I would have to help Haruki.

I really hate fighting and violence of any sort, even in self defense. I have always

believed that running away is the best way.

But now this nasty man was punching my husband in the jaw! Haruki reeled.

I had no plan this time; I just reacted.

I jumped onto his back, this man who had been bothering and frightening me for

the better part of a day by now.

Revenge!!!

I screamed like a demon.

It was probably my weight on his back that destabilized him, but I still like to

think that it was my loud shriek that really did it. He faltered as he was about to

throw the punch and swayed backwards while I tightened my grip around his neck.

Sayuri had picked up the vase again, and raised it up a little but she looked

unsure. Possibly she was worried about hitting me by accident. My head was just

behind his and we were moving now, while we whirled around and around as he

tried to shake me off.

Haruki stood up, slightly stooped over from the hard punches he had received.

“Let me have the vase!” he yelled at Sayuri.

“Hold him around the chest instead, Mari!” he yelled.

Obediently, I slid my arms down around the man’s chest, but his arms were very

strong and he grabbed my wrists and twisted free. He ignored me and circling

around to face Haruki, he crouched down athletically and got ready to jump on my

husband.

Too late!!!!!

Hah!!!

Haruki, though older, smaller and weaker, rushed bravely at the man. Their eyes

must have met; and though I was now standing so I could see Haruki’s back, I

sensed the drama in the moment as they faced each other and locked eyes. I saw

the fear in the man’s eyes as my husband took a fast running step forward, lifted

the vase up and brought it down on the man’s head without hesitating.

Breathing with relief and pent-up stress at the same time, I found myself

kneeling weakly on the floor while I watched the man gasp, then teeter and topple

over in a heap. Now I was hoping that he was still alive after that awful blow.

Haruki, being a man, was probably stronger than Sayuri and if he had put all his

effort into the swing, it was entirely possible that it could have been lethal.

But then again, Haruki may have wanted only to stun him.

The whole scene had occurred in a few minutes and there hadn’t been any

visitors coming in, but now a man in his 60s appeared in the doorway and walked

over to the table. The younger agent was behind the large table and not visible to

him, but the older agent, who had been the second to fall, was sprawled in clear

view.

The visitor approached the table and his eyes widened as he caught sight of the

agent.

“Oh no! What happenend? Is he all right?”

Sayuri, Haruki and I looked blankly at each other.

Good question.

Was he all right?

“Oh, yes, he is all right”, said Haruki hastily, “my brother has a weak heart and

suddenly fainted here, as we were viewing the temple. But we have called for

help.”

Sayuri put on her official face and strode to the official space behind the table.

She straightened her sweater and her hand lightly---and intentionally--- brushed

against her name badge, calling attention to her official position.

“We have called the paramedics and they are on their way”, she said with great

seriousness. “It might be better if you left so that you won’t be in their way. Please

come back and view the statues a bit later. Maybe in about 20 minutes.”

“Of course, he said, “I hope he recovers.”

“Thank you for your generous understanding”, said Haruki, giving him a pained

smile.

I put on a look of suffering. It was not hard to do since I had actually been

suffering minutes before.

The man quickly left, without even glancing once at the Twelve Heavenly

Warriors of Yakushi Buddha.

“Great!”, said Sayuri, her eyes following the receding figure of the man as he

disappeared out the door, “Let’s pull that guy away from where he can be seen!”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” I couldn’t help but ask the question that had been

on my mind.

“I think so,” said Sayuri, “look, see him breathing. What a pair of horrible liars,

though!”

The man’s chest was rising and falling ever so faintly.

“How about the other one?” I asked.

“Mari”, said Haruki, “if they’re alive they could wake up any moment. Are you

just curious or just worried about their health, or what?”

“Well….”, I paused, “Maybe both. This is all so horrible in a way.”

“Well, it could have been a lot worse if they had been successful. I don’t think

they would have been as kind to us as we were to them.”

Sayuri ignored us and strode quickly over to the screen where there was a

doorway with a green velvet curtain. It had a long golden rope to tie it to the wall.

She pulled the rope off and brought it back. With a scissors from a box on the

table, she cut the long rope in half.

“Let’s tie them up, help me to get the knots tight. Pull this.”, she said.

“Now this is good thinking!” I said. Was this knowledge the effects of the

detective dramas or was she simply one of those people who could be so practical

and quick in a situation where I felt completely helpless?

We bound up their wrists and tied the unconscious pair of agents to two of the

table legs after we had rolled them under the table.

The younger one was starting to groan and mutter by then.

“Quickly!” said Sayuri, “Leave!”

“What about you?” asked Haruki.

“I’m going to call the police and tell them some men---maybe I’ll pretend to

wildly speculate that I thought they might be yakuza----came in here and started

fighting. In the end, these two lost the fight and the winners tied them up and ran

away. I doubt these two will contradict my story. Now hurry!”

Haruki gave her a grateful look and we both bowed quickly to our benefactress.

“arigatou”

“doitasshimashite.”

We picked our shoes up from the floor under the table and passed by the Twelve

Divine Generals of the Yakushi Buddha. They had indeed helped us. I whispered

“thank you” and found myself smiling gratefully at them as we rushed past.

Outside, the autumn sky was fading to early dusk. Branches of red maple leaves

formed flat red parasols in beautiful patterns all the way down the edges of the

steps.

We heard sirens down below.

“Hold my hand. Let’s stroll slowly instead now,” said Haruki, “if we run it will

look more suspicious.”

“Sayuri must have called the police” I said.

“Yeah, but we don’t know if any of them are also taking orders from Vector. We

still haven’t really gotten away yet.”

“Mmmm. So we had better pretend we’re a couple terribly in love.”

Haruki just smiled and pulled me closer, holding me around my waist.

A few minutes later, we were giggling and seemingly dizzy with romantic

affection when four officers in uniform appeared below us on the stairs. Three of

them rushed past us, but the last one, slightly older than the others fell behind

and, pausing, eyed us with professional curiosity.

What had we seen? What did we know? We were certainly coming from the right

direction.

He seemed to pause as if he wanted to say something to us.

Haruki suddenly grinned at me, passionately threw his arm around my shoulder

and loudly exclaimed, “Can’t wait to get to the love hotel!”

The policeman quickly looked away and quickened his pace as he followed the

other three up the stairs.

“While you were at it, why didn’t you just ask him for directions to the nearest

one?” I said, laughing.

“Hey, I’m being serious.” He leaned down and kissed me quickly under a branch

of red maples. It was very romantic.

But, after all, we were supposed to be running for our lives!

“Haruki!” I said exasperatedly, “our lives are at at stake and you can only think

about----“

“Wait! That’s it! That’s IT!”

“That’s what?”

“We really will go to one.” He grabbed my hand and we started rushing down

the stairs, “a love hotel is just perfect for our needs. Private. Discreet. Cheap.

They’re all over the place too. No reservations needed. Even the check-in process

is anonymous.”

The logic made sense. We arrived at the main gate to the temple.

“There may be other Vector agents hanging around looking for a couple like us.

We’d better walk separately”, He paused and smiled, “at least, in the movies, it

usually works.”

I folded my arms across my chest. Men like to take charge, but they are actually

not always equipped to do so.

“Not always”, I said, challenging him, “Sometimes one of them is caught and

then the other one is forced to ride to the rescue.”

Haruki looked thoughtful, “You mean you think we should walk together?”

“Well, what did you have in mind, exactly, for this part of our journey? I guess I

need more information. But I think you should ask me too and not just decide

everything by yourself.”

“OK, Mari, you’re right. So let me explain. This is just a village surrounded by

mountains, with little narrow roads and a few noodle shops. As I remember there’s

a bus that stops here every hour. The bus stop is near a soba noodle shop just

down this road.”

“If we get on the bus, where will we get to?”

“It eventually goes to Akame, more specifically it goes to Akame Station. From

there, we take a cab or probably within walking distance, there is a love hotel.”

I saw that Haruki’s idea was right. And even the idea to walk separately for now

was probably good.

“OK”, I agreed, “and when we get to the bus stop, first thing we’ll do is

separately check the bus schedule posted there. Then, depending on when the bus

is coming, let’s get some noodles in the soba shop and even sit separately there

too. You’re right. It would be safer if we are not seen together. And keep your hat

on. They may know what you look like, but they probably don’t know what I look

like. I’m not all over the internet, so they don’t have my photograph. I don’t even

have a Facebook account. Teachers at my high school aren’t supposed to do online

social networks.”

“All right then, so who’s going to walk in front?” Haruki asked me.

“Let’s see”, I said, “You are more likely to be recognized than I am. So you walk

in front of me. I’ll follow behind about 100 meters or so. I’ll be able to see if anyone

approaches you, and, as I said, ride to your rescue.”

“That’s very kind of you!” He grinned at me again.

“Isn’t it?” I laughed.

But now he was looking serious.

“But actually, you might have to do just that. Be careful. Create a diversion, a

fainting attack, pretend you’re crazy, come up to me and start ranting and I’ll

pretend I don’t know you, try and ask me for some money, whatever. Let’s start

yelling at each other, making a lot of noise….anything to get some attention from

other people.”

“Haruki! Daijoubu! You don’t have to keep giving me instructions! I’ll manage!”

”All right then”, he said, briefly touching my shoulder, “don’t sit near me on the

bus. And get off when I get off.”

“OK”, I said.

Ittekimasu!”

He said it softly. It was the familiar word for “‘bye” when you are leaving the

house in the morning. It means ‘I’ll go and come back’.

“Itterash-ai!”, I answered, almost whispering this familiar answering word,

another endearing term for ‘good-bye’.

Go and then come back to me.

We had another stretch of road ahead of us, another place under this wide

empty sky, which had been both unfriendly and friendly today, to negotiate and

get through as well as we could. I waited for a few minutes and watched Haruki

trying to stroll casually down the street like any tourist. Maybe it was only me, his

wife, who could pick up the tension in his walk. There was something about way

his head was turned slightly so he would be able to pick up any sounds..

Setting off after him, I realized I was walking the same way. All our relaxing

times seemed over. Would we know them again? Would we always be watched and

followed?

We did not know how many people Vector had managed to send after us, or

where those people might be located. We didn’t know if they had enrolled the help

of local authorities, or how effectively those authorities might be at finding a

middle-aged couple, a pair of academics, masquerading as agents for the moment.

I imagined a computer monitor showing Google Earth, somewhere far off, with an

evil villain watching the screen. Somehow ludicrously, in this most doltish of

reveries, I pictured him wearing a diamond pinky ring and an expensive silk shirt

and fashionable grey slacks. There, on the bad guy’s screen two anonymous, little

figures----Haruki and I---- walked separately but determinedly along a small street

near an old temple in the mountains of Japan. Mustering all his power, could this

villain fail to stop us? We were like two tiny ants crawling along the ground.

But, yet, that was our only hope, too!

Our only hope was to be--- and stay----anonymous and unrecognizable for as

long as possible. This villain had many screens and resources to monitor them all,

but there were millions of anonymous figures making their way down many streets

and picking us out from the crowd was not going to be easy for him.

Ahead, I noticed a bus next to a sign, the bus stop. Haruki was studying the sign.

He glanced at me and casually boarded the bus. I quickened my step. The bus did

not move. In relatively remote locations like this that also happened to be touristy

spots, the bus stop was often the shuuten or the end of the line. It was convenient

for us, certainly, but were our pursuers waiting on the bus too?

I stepped up onto the bus and, avoiding looking at anyone, I walked to the front

of the bus and sat down. It was harder for anyone to see my face in a front seat.

What I wanted was total anonymity.

The sky was starting to lose its brightness in the late afternoon. Looking down

from the bus window, I noticed a river, half-dried up, down a cement embankment.

Maybe it was this mood of afternoon gloom and the pathetic river that made me

start to worry about Haruki suddenly. I wanted to turn around to look at him and

confirm that he was still on the bus and that he was all right. The tragic myth of

Orpheus, followed by his wife Eurydice until the moment he turned around to

check that she was still there, popped into my head; I had read it so blithely as an

English lesson with my students just a few days ago. Now I was personally

suffering Orpheus’ agonies and unable to turn around and look at my own spouse

out of fear our identities would be dangerously compromised.

When a fictional story suddenly became too real, when the real human pain was

exposed, suddenly what had been a safe distance away was all too close. The

feeling of being on display was unbearable.

The bus driver closed the door with a squeaky old lever, the engine revved up,

and the ancient bus lurched into motion with a jerk, interrupting my gloomy train

of thought.

The countryside passed by my window but I did not turn around. At various bus

stops, the bus paused to let people off or on and I watched a bit tensely to see if

Haruki was getting off so I could follow him. Dusk was falling when the bus arrived

back at a place that seemed more familiar in darkness: Akame Station. Haruki

silently swept up the aisle without glancing at me and I noticed a man, in a jogging

suit, following him. Nervously, I got up and followed the two out the door after I

paid my fare.

Was this man another Vector agent?

Ignoring me, Haruki was walking quickly to the station.

He disappeared into the station and I casually strolled over too, as if I were on

my way to catch a train. The man, short and thin and quite athletic, rushed ahead

of me and followed Haruki inside.

Haruki was standing at the ticket machine and buying a ticket. He didn’t glance

at me or the man. There were two ticket vending machines and I noticed the man

who seemed to be following us got into line behind an older woman at the other

machine. I moved into line behind Haruki, standing the usual distance away that

we reserve for strangers. Haruki took his ticket and moved away from the machine

without giving me a glance.

I got out some money and bought a ticket, the cheapest one. Who knew where

we going? We could adjust the fare later.

If we were still alive.

Haruki slipped his ticket into the turnstile machine and went up to the platform

nearest us. The man followed him. I followed them both. Turning around, I noticed

a few more people, besides the older woman, who was walking slowly, coming

through the turnstiles. The small station glowed with a cool fluorescent light in the

darkness outside. It was a rush hour of sorts, even here. Not that Akame, out in the

country, was a big metro station with lots of commuting office workers, but the

early evening was still a time when people went to their restaurant jobs and got off

from work at the onsen hotels.

We were lucky that other people would be waiting for the train too, I realized as I

followed Haruki and the man up the stairs to the platform. Being alone with this

man, if he was an agent from Vector, was not what we wanted at all.

On the platform, under the lights, I counted five or six people standing and

waiting for the train. Haruki stood well back against the wall at the edge of the

platform. Was he afraid of being suddenly pushed? I shivered to think of the

danger he---and I, too--- might be in.

On the other hand, the man in the jogging suit might be no one in particular.

However, instinctively, I felt there was something strange about the way he

seemed to be staying so close to Haruki.

The man stood nearer the train tracks, but kept turning around casually every

few minutes to look behind him, where Haruki was standing.

I found a place to stand near the wall also, although 5 meters or so away from

Haruki.

Haruki was standing under a small lamp I saw his face turn; his eyes met mine

very briefly, then he turned away.

The loudspeakers crackled briefly and we heard the announcement. The train

to Kyoto was due in two minutes. Haruki edged closer to me.

The man stepped back away from the track side of the platform and eyeing

Haruki, looked at me, standing closer to Haruki now, with a knowing, vaguely evil

leer.

He was definitely onto us.

The train arrived and came to a stop. The doors opened as jangling and

somewhat repetitive recorded music on the platform signaled that the doors were

open. The man stepped further back to let people get off the train. He seemed to

step away further than he needed to, as if he were fearful that Haruki and I, behind

him, would not get on the train after he did. Three or four people who had been

waiting on the platform crowded near the doors to board the train and the man

hung farther back. Haruki glanced at me and got on the train. I followed him

quickly through the doorway, with the man right behind me, so close I could smell

his spicy-lemony hair tonic.

Haruki suddenly reached out and pulled me to one side near the train door. The

man, whom I was now definitely thinking of as “our pursuer”, meanwhile had to

move forward past me to let a large young man playing a game on a bulky tablet

mobile device slowly board the train behind him. The music on the platform

abruptly stopped in mid-note, signaling that the platform was clear and that the

doors were about to close. The man, maneuvering around the young man and

nearer us again, seemed to be sticking closely to us.

“Jump!” yelled Haruki at me.

As one, we jumped through the doorway and onto the platform. The doors were

still open, though now the ringing sound signaling that they were about to close

was playing on the loudspeakers. The athletic man was hovering in the doorway,

about to spring after us. The muscles tightened at his neck and I saw him getting

ready to jump out after us.

Haruki paused, and then, rather than fleeing, which would have been the normal

thing, he whirled closer to the man and to the train, and did something utterly

bizarre, something I had never seen him do ever before in 20 years of marriage.

“HA, HA, HA, HA!!!”

Haruki laughed a loud, harsh and almost bitter laugh, a laugh that seemed to

carry a challenge or ridicule or a dare, right in the man’s face. But it was a realistic

laugh, nonetheless, a real laugh at something funny, not, strangely, a put-on one.

But what was funny about our situation?

On the train, the man froze, dumbfounded. Indeed, the shocking laugh seemed

to utterly paralyze him. He gaped at Haruki.

The doors closed and the train pulled away.

We were alone on the dark platform.

“Good heavens!” I said, suitably impressed, “how did you think of that laughing

trick? Don’t snakes mesmerize their prey with their facial expressions and then

gobble them down? I had no idea that humans could do it too!””

“Well, I didn’t actually gobble him down, but laughing to shock an enemy and

surprise him and gain advantage is an old ninja trick.”

“And are you an old ninja, therefore?”

“No, of course I’m not an old or a young or even a middle-aged ninja,” he said,

laughing more gently now, “but I read a book once about ninja tactics. The laugh-

in-the-enemy’s face trick to shock or surprise him is one that I always wanted to

try, actually. This seemed like the time.”

“It was amazing. I would like to try it too!” I found myself saying.

But I hoped I wouldn’t need to!

“Anyway, as amusing as it was, it doesn’t buy us much time. He’ll be calling

already for others to come,” said Haruki. “It’s likely that at first, with us sitting

separately, he wasn’t sure you and I were the people he was looking for, but, now,

of course, after that, he’s quite positive we are. So we don’t have long before his

friends arrive.”

“A love hotel?” I asked, remembering the idea.

“Yeah, let’s try to see if there is one around here.”

We went back down the stairs to the exit and, in the darkness interrupted by the

pools of light from a few streetlights, I recognized the same place that Yuuki and I

had seen when we had first arrived. There were no taxis waiting, though one or

two cars were idling at the edge.

“Should we call a taxi?” I asked, “there are probably some specially dedicated

taxi-calling phones in the tourist center or in the station.”.

“No,” said Haruki, “wherever we ask to be taken will become information that

Vector will soon find out through questioning people. They know, now, or they can

very accurately guess, that we have no car. It’s a huge advantage for them to

know that. They must have just assumed before that we had one.”

“So what are we going to do?”

Haruki looked serious.

“I don’t know, Mari,” he said. “We might have to run away into the fallow rice

fields around here to be hunted and eventually found, like wild rabbits.”

Looking around for an idea, I caught sight of a small sign saying “SNACK---

Yanagi” beside a house. “Snack” in Japan usually means a pub or a small bar, a

mom-and-pop business, run on the first floor of a home. They often had plant or

flower names: “Rose”, “Lilly”, “Oak”, “Fern”; “Yanagi” was “Willow”.

These little bars were so romantic. If Haruki and I were just lovers, we might stop

at such a place for a quick meal.

“Wait,” I said, thinking. Daydreaming could sometimes be helpful. Here, in my

ridiculous reverie-filled brain, was a scenario that we could now actually use.

“Let’s go in to the bar” I said, “and ask them to drive us to a love hotel. We’ll say

we’re trying to avoid your wife and her watchful private detective. Of course, we’ll

offer to pay them.”

“Excellent!” said Haruki, looking impressed, “how did you suddenly come up

with that?”

“”I’ve been thinking about plays and performing I suppose. It must be all the

Shakespeare you’ve been talking about. It’s really rather fun.”

Haruki nodded. “I know what you mean” he said, “A few months ago, after

reading a lot of Shakespeare, I started to realize that my college classes were a

kind of performance too.”

“Maybe our whole lives are a performance,” I said, “but how about when we’re

with each other? Aren’t we our true selves then---I mean, as much as we can ever

be?

Haruki just laughed easily and then squeezed my hand hard as an answer. He

was never one for endless philosophical speculation, and besides, we had arrived.

He pulled open the light-blue door and we stepped inside.

The lights were dim, and there was no smoke wafting around since there were

no customers yet, but the stale smell of the smoke of a thousand thousand

yesterdays was inescapable, permeating the whole room like a sticky film. I made

an effort not to gag.

A man in his 50s in a light green golf shirt was standing behind the small bar. He

smiled pleasantly when he saw us, his first customers.

“Good-evening,” he said, setting two paper coasters on the bar and motioning

us to sit down on two chairs.

We sat down. Certainly I was quite thirsty, but I wondered if we really had time

to drink anything. I envisioned Vector agents sweeping up to the curb in a black

sedan outside.

I must have looked nervous.

Haruki looked troubled and cleared his throat,

The man put glasses of water down in front of us. A stout woman in a brown

apron, who I assumed was his wife, emerged from behind a faded pink noren

curtain covering the entrance to what I guessed was the kitchen.

“Good evening,” she said cheerfully, “It’s starting to get a little chilly isn’t it?”

The man put menus, their pages encased in plastic, down in front of us.

“I’m sorry,” said Haruki, “we don’t want any food, we need some help, and it’s

kind of an emergency.”

It occurred to me that we were now involving this nice couple in our problems. I

felt worse. At the very least, we should tell them the truth so they would know the

risks.

Haruki began, “We just need to get away from here without a taxi, since taxi

companies could be used to trace our destination.”

“Could I ask why you need to get away?” the man asked, putting a small bowl of

nuts and pretzels on the counter in front of us.

“We haven’t done anything wrong”, I said, interrupting,

I wasn’t sure what to say. Should we continue with the planned story about

marital problems or should we lie?

It was Haruki’s secret, his life and his job, so I decided to leave it up to him.

Was he going to use a convenient lie?

He chose his words carefully, but, to my relief, he abandoned the trite and easy

lie I had concocted earlier.

“To be perfectly honest,” said Haruki, “we are on the run from some pretty scary

people, but I won’t go into the details. There simply isn’t time. There is some risk

to you if you agree to help us. But if we get away successfully, they are not likely

to bother you in the unlikely event they’d find out about your help. They’re not

vindictive. They are just businesspeople. Very business-like.”

“Could you tell me a little more? Have you been involved in a crime?”

“No, I can promise you no, but a crime has been committed and they have tried

to accuse me of it.”

“How do you want us to help you, then?”

“Drive us to a love hotel that is as far away as possible, as far as you don’t mind

going. We’ll pay you. If you are going to refuse, please tell us so now so we can use

what little time we have left to get away on foot.”

We must have looked as desperate as we were. Waiting for the verdict and

trying to be calm, I took a sip of water.

The man didn’t say anything for a moment or two. Then, seeming to reflect, he

asked us “It’s not the yakuza, I suppose, who are after you?”

“No”, said Haruki, “it’s not, unfortunately.”

“Well, then let’s go,” said the proprietor, attempting to smile at Haruki’s joke

and then glancing at at his wife, who, not looking at us at all, was pursing her lips

and looking down at her arms.

“Daijoubu”, he said to her. It will be all right, “daijoubu. You can manage here

alone, it’s still early, but if anyone asks about this couple, of course, it’s important

that you say nothing.”

“I’m aware of that.” She looked miserable but determined.

“We’d better go as soon as possible, then,” said the man, very businesslike, and

taking his car keys from a hook next to the cash register, “come on through the

kitchen, that is the most private way out to the side entrance where the car is

parked.”

“Wait,” I said, thinking how quickly the agents had come to my house in Kiyama,

“your wife shouldn’t stay here. Turn off all the burners in the kitchen and lock the

bar, put the closed sign on the door and either your wife should come with us or

she should take a train now and you pick her up somewhere later.”

“Yes,” said Haruki, looking relieved, “that is a good idea. We’ll help you get

ready to go. It’s better if both of you will be out if they come to question you.”

As quickly as we could, we shut off all the machines in the kitchen and put lids

on the pots that had food in them. Mr. Satoh got his jacket and picked up his wife’s

coat too.

She stood silently..

“Maybe my wife should just come with us now? It seems like it would be better if

we were together.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Haruki.

We got into the car, Haruki and I in the back seat, and closed the doors.

“Better crouch down on the floor or lie down on the seat so they can’t spot you.”

“O.K. Good idea.” said Haruki, squeezing his legs onto the floor. I followed suit

on my side of the seat. It was a small car, a kei car, one of the small economical

boxy little cars that are so popular now. It was so small that we barely had room to

crouch down on the floor. We folded ourselves as well as we could, with the top

halves of our bodies on the seat. It was an exceedingly awkward pose.

“How are you doing back there?” asked the pub owner.

“We are fine!” Haruki answered as cheerfully as he could, “Allow me to introduce

myself, by the way. We are the Miyagawas. Hajimemashite.”

“And we are named Satoh. Hajimemashite.”

“Hajimemashite”, said Mrs. Satoh.

“Hajimemashite”, I said.

“I guess I should explain why we need help,” said Haruki.

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” said Mr. Satoh in a level voice.

“Just in general terms, I can say that I’m a scientist, an astronomer and I’ve

discovered a dangerous secret and it in necessary that I make it public in order to

stop something terrible from happening.”

Mr. Satoh was silent for a moment while he made a turn at a stop light.

“What, are you going to contact the press?” Mrs. Satoh asked, sounding

interested.

“Yes, actually, I’m hoping to do just that.”

“You remind me of that IT fellow in America who fled to Hong Kong then to

Russia…What was his name? Oh, I remember now, Edward Snowden,” said Mr.

Satoh.

“Well, I hope you’ll successfully get away too, like he did.” said Mrs. Satoh.

“Yeah, that’s pretty exciting. I wish you both luck.”

“Thanks,” Haruki said.

“So where would you like to go? A more distant train station? A hotel?”

“We were thinking of a love hotel, actually. They’re very anonymous and discreet

and there’re a lot of them around.”

“That’s a good idea”, said Mr. Satoh, “there are a few around here. Let’s see,

there is the Hotel O, there is the Hotel Song, and there is another one, whose

name I forgot.”

“Which one is farthest away?”

“That one whose name I forgot. It’s almost a forty-minute drive. I rarely drive

that far away so I don’t see it and its name escapes me. Do you remember it,

dear?” he asked his wife.

“No, not me,” she said, sounding bemused.

“If you don’t mind, the one that is farthest away would be best for us. We can

pay you, of course. How about 10,000 yen?” asked Haruki.

“That’s fine.”

We rode in silence for a while. Haruki and I were awkwardly twisted, with our

knees bent and our heads flat against the back seat.

“You must be uncomfortable, but you shouldn’t get up just yet,” said Mr. Satoh,

“We’re passing quite a few cars. The bad guys might be on the lookout for you.”

I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I had never been to a love hotel before and I

was a bit intrigued by the thought. I had heard that the staff was invisible for

ultimate discretion. Cameras might be placed around secretly, but you would not

see a person inside.

Some love hotels had themed rooms: a train, a Hawaiian resort, an Edo-style

room in an inn, for kinky---or creative----sexual role playing.

None of those ideas seemed right for Haruki and me, though, I speculated. We

never played roles other than ourselves during sex. We were only the people we

really were.

But now that we were on the run, weren’t we playing spies, or agents? Of

course, we weren’t actually going to a love hotel for the purpose that people

usually went there, but, anyway, the thought occurred to me that, like anyone else,

spies and agents needed this kind of love too.

Chapter 24

After about thirty minutes, Mr. Satoh stopped the car and got out and opened

both of the back doors for us. We unfurled our bodies from the back seat and

stepped out into the darkness; my neck was aching and I felt dizzy. It occurred to

me that it would have been better to have been on the run years earlier while I

was still in my 30s. Now it was a rough ride.

Haruki took a 10,000 yen bill from his wallet and gave it to Mr. Satoh.

“Thank you very much,” Haruki said.

“We’re very grateful,” I added.

I looked up at the neon sign above the hotel: “Hotel Jupita Monogatari”

Hotel Story of Jupiter.

“Look at the name!” I said, marveling at the imaginative juxtaposition of “story”

and “Jupiter”.

“Let’s go,” said Mr. Satoh to his wife.

“You probably know it, but love hotels are very discreet so,” said Haruki to Mr.

Satoh, “lock yourselves in if you go to another one and don’t open the door for

anyone if anyone knocks. Stay inside until morning and then it should be all right

to go back to your house. We’ll be gone from here, I promise you by seven, so you

can tell them where you brought us. Tell them any lie you like, that we paid you a

lot of money, that we said our car broke down, anything, preferably not the truth,

though. It’s much better if they think you know nothing. And then you were struck

by a desire for passion on the way back home and stopped in another love hotel. If

they ask. If they show up.”

“Thanks and be careful too.” said Mr Satoh,

Mr. and Mrs. Satoh climbed hurriedly back into their car. In the darkened parking

lot, it was hard to see the expression on his wife’s face, but from the speed at

which they left, it was clear that they were glad that they would not be seeing us

anymore.

“Let’s check in,” said Haruki, putting his arm around me, “then let’s order room

service. I’m hungry. Love hotels always offer room service, I’ve heard. Did you

know? And the staff leaves the food on a tray in a foyer so that they never see the

faces of the clients or knows their names. The privacy is total.”

“Makes sense,” I said. I had vaguely heard of this necessary and famous feature

too, which dated back to the Edo era. “After all, if any suspicious spouses come

prowling around looking for their cheating husband or wife, the staff wants to

ensure total deniability. It’s one of their services, in a way. And much safer and

easier for them, too. For everyone.”

“Well, exactly.”

The hallway inside was somewhat darker than an ordinary hotel. Little disc lights

set far apart in the ceiling provided an obscurely lit path to see our way forward.

The lighting was no doubt intentional: it was clear that if someone had happened

to walk past us, the light was not sufficient to fully illuminate the facial features

clearly.

Soon we found ourselves in front of a large screen with thirty or so small

squares. Most were dark, but a few had a back-lit photograph of a room and a

price.

“It looks like the ones that are lit up are available,” said Haruki, “the ones that

are dark are occupied.”

I inspected the room décor in the photographs. Some looked like plain hotel

rooms, but some were clearly different.

“This one has a Paris theme,” said Haruki, “look at the large statue of the Eiffel

Tower on the coffee table.”

“And the bedspread looks like the French flag.”

“Wow. How about it?

“Well….” I said, “but it’s expensive.”

“Well, then how about this one,” Haruki started laughing. “Look, it’s Santa’s

workshop. Probably there are sexy elf outfits for us to wear.”

In the photograph, I saw a Christmas tree on the coffee table and strings of

colored lights hanging from the ceiling. The effect was incongruous, far from

romantic.

“Umm, no.”

“Room 505 is available. It’s just plain and cheap. I think it would be a good idea

to hurry up and choose. Who knows where those Vector agents are by now. Did

you make sure to turn off your cell phone?”

“Yes,” I said, checking my phone and then turning my attention back to the

rooms “hey, look at 207. It’s not the cheapest one but it looks interesting.”

In the photograph, the coffee table had a model of a spaceship. A ball on the

ceiling cast illuminated star-shaped lights on the walls. A large, rather creative

drawing of a blue space alien hung on the wall.

“UFOs and outer space? Is it romantic?” Haruki asked, “it reminds me of the lab

back at work a little.”

“Well I can think of nothing more romantic than the night sky.”

Haruki pushed a small button on the screen to choose room 207 and the

photograph disappeared. A recording of a woman’s voice said “arigatou

gozaimashita”.

“That means we go to the room now,” said Haruki.

There was no front desk, no reception area, no staff, no key. There was no one. It

was almost eerie, but this time, it suited us perfectly.

We found the elevator and took it up one floor.

A light flashing above room 207 indicated that the room was unlocked and ready

for us now.

We went inside and took off our shoes in a vestibule that led to another door.

“There is this private area, you see, that’s where the staff will leave the things

you order, like food or sexy outfits. You will never see the staff, nor will they see

you.”

“Very mysterious. Very spooky.”

“No,” said Haruki, smiling and opening the second door, “it’s just discreet and

safe.”

The first door that led to the hallway closed slowly behind us and locked with a

heavy clicking sound.

“Are we, by any chance, locked in?” I asked.

“Actually, I think so. Do you see that machine in the vestibule beside you?”

I noticed the non-descript vending machine beside me.

“It’s to pay on our way out. If we don’t pay, the door won’t open. It’s very

simple. Cheating on your spouse is fine, but not cheating in order to avoid the bill.”

He laughed.

“Clever.”

I stepped into the room behind Haruki and caught my breath. The alien’s face

seemed enormous in the picture on the wall. Haruki went over to the bed, which

was covered with a cover the color of a dusky blue sky, and, sitting down, fiddled

with some switches on the wall behind the bed.

“Look,” he said, “here are the switches to start the ball on the ceiling rotating

and lighting up stars on the walls.”

He pressed a few switches and the ceiling lights in the room dimmed and the

stars came out, like a tiny planetarium. There must have been hundreds. Slowly,

they swirled overhead in the darkness.

“I suppose Sirius may well be among them,” I said, sitting down on the bed.

Then, giving myself up to this beautiful artifice all around me, I lay all the way

down to see better.

“I suppose it may.”

We watched the stars circulating but Haruki sat up after a few minutes and

turned on the ceiling lights.

“Mari,” he said, “we have to eat something, then think of a plan. We have to

figure out where to go next and how to contact someone about the Vector

satellites. And I can’t use the smartphone Ueda-san gave me. You called me on

yours, so it’s been compromised.”

We found a plastic-encased room service menu on the coffee table. There were a

few simple dishes, seemingly provided by a nearby domburi restaurant, but

through the love hotel.

“It’s practical,” said Haruki, “there’s no kitchen in this hotel, or restaurant either,

and they save on costs like that. Besides people don’t come to love hotels for the

food. So what will you have? A bowl of rice with fried shrimp? Eel on top of the

rice? Fried fish?”

“Yes, that,” I said, “fried fish.”

Haruki settled on fried pork cutlet and called the number on the menu. The

phone would be answered, I knew, by someone invisible inside the hotel, someone

we would never see or meet, who would relay our order to the restaurant and then

deliver the dish to our vestibule later.

“Now, the more difficult part,” said Haruki, after calling in our order, “is deciding

what to do tomorrow, and after that.”

“Doesn’t this hotel have a computer with an internet connection?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. Love hotels don’t have that, probably. The lobby is a blank,

right, you saw it. Not a business center. Love hotel guests would be unlikely to use

any digital devices that belonged to a love hotel. Discretion can’t be assured.”

“Well, the answer seems to be we need to find an internet connection, which

means an internet café or, as you say, a business center, I mean a hotel with a

computer we can use. I mean tomorrow.”

“Yes, that seems to be the only thing we can do. If only this smart phone hadn’t

been compromised, I could use it now. But I’m not going to even turn it on. It’s too

risky”

“Then let’s just forget all about the whole problem now.”

“It sounds good, but I’m worried that Vector has figured out there’s a high

probability that we are in one of three or four or five local love hotels. They

could station people around to watch tonight or tomorrow.”

“But there are also plenty of ordinary hotels, and we could be at any of

them. They have no idea. Or we might have gotten on another train or be

hiding in a barn or under a bridge. They can’t know. As long as we keep our

cell phones off, they can’t find us. You worry too much.”

“But someone has to think of every possibility.”

“But…it’s annoying to be so obsessively worried! We’ll call a cab early

tomorrow and we’ll go to a train station and then to a bigger city and contact

the people you need to contact.”

“I hope it will be as easy as you say.”

“What about Yuuki, though?”

“Of course, we can’t really call him. Vector may know that the cell phone

you called was Ueda san’s. They may have been there even. But they have

no idea that Yuuki is our son. So Yuuki is safe. I told Yuuki that he shouldn’t

worry.”

“It’s awful not being able to call him, though.”

“Well, we can be very glad that he’s there. We’ll get through this and

then we’ll go back as we were before.”

“Yes.”

The doorbell rang and the outer door in the vestibule opened with a click. We

waited until the door had closed again. That was the way here. Total

anonymity.

“The food,” said Haruki, going to retrieve it.

Neither of us had eaten anything since the morning, so we were hungry

and the food, not particularly tasty, was soon gone. Haruki put the empty

dishes on the tray and brought it to the vestibule.

Returning, he sat down on an uncomfortable-looking black fake-leather

sofa that had many golden rivets in it, perhaps another allusion to the stars..

He put his head back and closed his eyes.

I also felt tired. I put my feet up on the bed, then turned over to study the

complicated array of switches.

“How do I turn the ceiling lights off and make the stars come out again?”

Haruki opened his eyes, “Is it the left one? I think it was the left one for

the stars.”. After another few clicks, the ceiling lights dimmed and the stars

began rotating slowly around the ceiling again. I lay back to watch them.

Haruki came to join me on the spacious ‘space’ bed. He folded his elbows

under his head and studied the arrangement of lights.

We were both tired, but I realized that it was the worry and the far, the

adrenalin, that had affected us more than the physical activity. What I was

thinking was the unromantic notion that love hotels were so explicit. They

silently shouted “hey, go ahead! Start now!”

We lay there, and it occurred to me that, under these lovely and restless

artificial stars, we would eventually and naturally, do what was expected of

us---what was expected of everyone---- in a love hotel.

But now all I wanted was a shower and a cup of tea.

Chapter 25

What time was it? Soft feathers were falling on my cheeks in my dream

while moonlight shone with difficulty in a foggy sky. It was too dark! The

artificial stars---we had turned them off---were gone. There was a window,

the kind of window small window you see in a cheap hotel, the window------I

was awake now----this window was open, and it was cold.

Had the Vector agents arrived?

I struggled with the sheet, there was something moving around near my

head.

A feathery wing.

“Oh!” I whispered. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I should have known

that he would be involved. I should have realized.

It was so clear later, anyway, so clear.

But now, not knowing, I smiled, happily. I had them both right here beside

me, the ones I loved the most in the world.

I didn’t doubt that I would be back by the time Haruki awoke. There was

magic in everything to do with my crane-lover; he was not human and there

would be no accidents, no lateness, no traffic jams, no broken clocks. No

problems related to material being.

We were vapor, or air, or smoke if we wanted to be so.

We were running streams and grass, trees, clouds in a blur, and rocks.

And we were the bare feet running over them.

Never late.

The crane’s beak was angled down so he could look at me. I hastily put

on my clothes and jumped on his back and together we set off through the

vaguely bright moon-lit sky.

Should I have felt a pang about leaving Haruki so blithely?

I always put my two lovers in two different categories; there was no

material world to worry about when I was with the crane, so the material

world and its mundane and boring but inescapable details did not exist.

I was perfectly content and no longer afraid of Vector here. That was

something to be grateful for. Of course, I was still concerned about Haruki

and I knew that I would naturally be going back to face these awful and

desperate Vector agents once again. But for now, I was untouchable.

Soon we were above the clouds but it wasn’t the same destination, there

was no wooden stage this time. We sailed through a large gray cloud; then

the air seemed to crack and unfold suddenly, there was a gap and we slipped

right through it, like going through a window that slips shut right after you all

by itself. A stillness reigned here; there was not even a breeze to waft a hair

or feather out of place. Before us, I saw some wide, regal-looking, but worn

marble steps leading up to what looked, incongruously, like a huge forest.

I got off the crane’s back and stood at his side. I turned my head to look

at the curve of the huge shape of the forest, a dark green canopy spreading.

It was a marvelous shape, like an island in the shape of a circle, poised or

floating or hovering. Somewhere. Wherever we were.

When I looked back at my companion, he was no longer a crane, but

Orsino, with his darkish rough skin, a T-shirt now, and dark gray jeans and

bare feet. My feet were bare too, I noticed. I hadn’t thought to put on my

shoes.

“A floating forest! How utterly bizarre!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, it is. Grown with much effort. Cultivated. Landscaped, then left

nobly alone to arrange itself,” he smiled slightly.

“Are we going in?”

“Yes we are definitely going in.”

The marble steps leading up to the forest made me remember the quite

different steps at Muroji; these were wider and worn by many feet. These

had no railing. They hung in a fragile fashion before me, touching the clouds.

The spirit held my hand tightly in his and pulled me up after him. The

thing I kept wondering was why we were in such a rush now, when on all

previous visits to his world, we had always had time to laze about on the

mysterious stage and do nothing in particular except kiss.

But I didn’t want to ask why everything was so different now. That was

another difference, I realized. I was feeling worried or apprehensive.

Previously, I had always felt so comfortable, and even my mischievous

questions and comments were fairly met with his smiles.

But something held me back this time, from asking all the questions I

wanted to ask.

Soon we were at the very top of the stairs and an old wooden gate hung

off one of its hinges before us. The spirit used one index finger to gently push

it open. It gave way with ease and we were in.

In where?

Just an ordinary forest, really. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ferns around

here and there, big trees, pines, all kinds.

Above us, a sky and the usual, perfectly ordinary sun you can see just

about anywhere.

“Hurry, Mari.”

We plunged into the wilderness, through the patches of light and shadow.

I stepped and then tripped over stones and tree roots.

“Why?” I asked, “Why? Why are we in a hurry? It makes no sense. A

forest has no schedule; it has no trains to catch. It has no reason to hurry.”

“Mari,” he stopped and turned around and gave me a sudden embrace

that made me feel weak and faint, “this forest has a little castle in the center

of it. And the castle has a queen. And she is waiting for us.”

A queen! It was a shock, to hear about someone else up here, especially

a queen. I had never met a queen before. Couldn’t queens be rather

imposing and impatient?

“I hope she is not the Red Queen,” I said, thinking of Alice in Wonderland.

“No, she is not the Red Queen. All the ways about here do not belong to

her, I mean to say.”

“Well then, what sort of queen is she?” I asked, ignoring the quote, which

I recognized.

We started walking again.

“She is my wife, in fact.” He didn’t stop. His voice sounded just ordinary.

“Your wife? You have a wife?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He

had never mentioned a wife before, much less that she was a queen. I felt

betrayed. He had seemed to be---he had acted as if he were--- only in love

with me.

Maybe he didn’t really love her….

“Well, yes, just as you have a husband, you know, Haruki, now asleep in

Hotel Jupiter Monogatari.”

It was true. I did have a husband.

Infidelity hadn’t really bothered me at all up until now.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked.

“Was there a reason? Did you ask? Did you need to know and would it

have made any difference?” He tore through a stand of ferns. “The way you

see me now is just a convenient illusion. The line dividing the material world

and the non-material world is very tough to cross. We can barely do it, only

in your dreams. The rest of the time, we are married to others and separated

by time and through it.”

“Meeting in dreams is better than nothing.”

“Exactly. And love, I can assure you, is different on either side of that

line.”

I paused as I stepped over a large tree root.

“Is it? Isn’t it more or less the same? It feels so similar. Bothersome and

heartbreaking. Wild. Strange. Like I’m in a new land sometimes. This is just a

lonelier kind of love. Don’t you feel that way? It’s just especially lonely to be

in love with someone who exists in another dimension.”

He laughed and stopped walking.

“If I were a living person, a man, like Haruki, you would never have spent

even a minute with me. You have always been a loyal wife, Mari, and you still

are. What we have makes no difference on the other side, the one of the

living.”

“I know, I shouldn’t mind your having a spirit---and a queen at that----for

a wife. It’s very balanced and symmetrical with my situation, except that

Haruki isn’t a king. Your marriage should be something that I have no cares

about. But, just to be honest with you, I do find myself caring. You started

this whole thing. It was you who came to find me, you who put me into a

place----a place where I looked back on all of the world---and suddenly found

myself an outsider; partly, at least in my head, where it counts most! Yes, in

a way, I’m now a ghost, someone like you. Because I have come to love you

and feel connected to you. You can’t imagine this feeling, a secret and subtle

division, or a tear…and it’s your fault!”

“Mari---“

There was pain in his eyes.

I didn’t care. I kept shouting at him.

“I can’t tell anyone about this----about you----, of course. There’s

loneliness for you! I’d just be judged completely crazy, a total lunatic.

Someone seeing ghosts, traveling through dreams to an old wooden stage to

abide with a spirit lover and exchange fantastical, nonsensical pleasantries.

And then, one day, like any trite old miserable soap opera, he comes and

tells me he’s really been married all along. What a joke.”

“Well, as far as your surmise about ‘one day’ goes, actually, there is

technically no day or night here. We’re not one bit affected by the stars or

the planets, any of them. They’re just decorative here, like those dancing

lights in your love hotel. It’s good, in fact. For you, they’re rough, actually.

Huge and demanding and rough. Demanding taskmasters. They just look

pretty, sparkling and shining and glowing up there in the sky. But that’s

nonsense, after all, if you see it from a certain perspective.”

“Oh, shut up!!!” I was endlessly tired of his philosophizing. Stars were

pretty and that was that.

“Mari---“

“I have had really enough of your airy, stupid, pointless cosmic

commentary! I’d really like to go back to my human husband in the love

hotel on the worldly and fallen Earth, that rough taskmaster, as you put it so

winningly, if you please. Right now.”

“Listen to what I have to say a bit, and then decide.”

“No! You listen. Haruki is involved in fighting a dangerous group, a large

corporation named Vector. They have a plan to steal all the solar energy from

the Pacific Ocean and Haruki is heroically and selflessly trying to stop them.

Instead of socializing with you and your royal wife in this nonmaterial,

irrelevant and trivial place of nothingness, I think I’ll head back to help my

husband. But, DAMMIT!! I can’t get back without you and your stupid magic

powers!”

“Mari,” he said as he stopped walking again and looked very serious, “if

you can calm down, what I’m trying to say is that Vector’s plan is the whole

reason I contacted you in the first place. I didn’t tell you because you didn’t

know about Vector and your knowing wouldn’t have made any difference

then. But now that has changed.”

“You mean,” I gasped, feeling an icy pain in my throat, “I’m now an

agent? Some sort of spy, or an operative, or what-have-you? Against my

knowledge and certainly, most certainly, against my will?? Without saying

anything? Without telling me the whole truth? You recruited me?”

He was walking again, fast, and not paying much attention to me

anymore. I wanted to stay where I was standing as a sign of protest, but I

didn’t dare lose sight of him since he was my only way, through this green

and forested and canopied nothingness, back to Haruki.

“It happens to people all the time,” he said rather coldly over his

shoulder, “didn’t you know? Are you really so naïve? And can you honestly

say you have gotten nothing out of it?”

The forest was still all around me and his figure forged determinedly

ahead, and I realized, feeling slightly ridiculous, that we looked like any

ordinary couple fighting in any ordinary woods on Planet Earth.

Giving up all my anger as I realized that he was right, I sat down on a

stone. I had finally sensed, with a light feeling, that I could never be lost

here. I existed somewhere, though not on any map, and this intrepid spirit,

Orsino, would make sure I got back to Haruki. The ordinary and the most

impossibly strange had simply collided in my life. To fight it was useless,

though perhaps it was unusual. It was something to enjoy, too. He was right.

I had gotten something out of it.

I still had so many questions.

I realized, with a laugh, a laugh I kept suitably private, that, first in my

mind, there was that classic question that always came after the lover had

revealed to his mistress that he was already married.

Do you love me or her better?

“Wait,“ I said, hurrying after him.

But somehow that ridiculous and trite question drifted farther from my

mind with each footstep I took. “Me or her”? “Her or me?” The distinction

melted away and I found I didn’t care after all.

The real question was of course, I realized there in the forest, if I really

existed or not. Whether I was in these woods or whether I was still in the love

hotel, or whether I was somewhere in between or nowhere or everywhere all

at the same time.

Haruki, as I have said already, had once explained quantum theory to

me. A particle, described as a complex wave function, could be several

places at the same time. Now it seemed like I had accidentally stumbled

upon some sort of related concept to do with people. Or maybe to do with

spirits, or both.

These were my legs, indeed, moving me forward and I could see them.

My knowledge was unmistakable .Yet everything to do with me was

preliminary, changeable and contingent, everywhere and nowhere. And that I

knew, too. Therefore love, also, aimed at me, would be also everywhere else

too.

“Her or me?” “Me or her?”

I caught up with the spirit, who looked so much like an ordinary man, in

front of me.

“Wait for me!” I said breathlessly, catching up to him.

“Yes, we need you,” he said, laughing, “come on.”

Chapter 26

The castle, standing in a clearing in the middle of the forest, was small and

round and made of brown stone, with all the proper ramparts and turrets. There

was no moat or defenses, no drawbridge or guards with shields or trumpets.

There were no horses or flags or ceremonial banners. There was a beautiful

pond with a few weeping willows, but the castle looked rather shabby, small,

old and abandoned.

“Where are we? Does the castle have an address beyond just ‘in the middle

of a forest’?”

“The heart of the forest, I suppose.”

“Your wife, the queen, is she inside, then?” I was getting nervous.

“Indeed.”

We crossed the drawbridge and went through a large doorway. In front of us

were a flight of stone stairs. We went up quickly.”

A room was at the top of the stairs. There was a doorway; the door stood

open. I slowed down. Extreme apprehension seized me. I didn’t want to go

into the room or meet this queen.

A queen, Orsino’s wife, Orsino’s queen.

A figure sat alone in a room. Daylight came in through three small

windows, but there was no other light in the room. In the slight obscurity, I

had trouble to see her features. She was at a table, with her hands folded. A

closed book was in front of her.

She wore a dark purple or indigo cloak and a white dress, just like queens

wear as a standard fashion in books of fairy tales, but she didn’t have a

crown.

Orsino went to sit beside her. It occurred to me that he might be some

sort of king. I had forgotten to ask him all about that part.

I sat down at the far end of the table, alone.

Orisno said, “I’d like to introduce you to Queen Sumiré.”

“It is very nice to meet you” I said, rising from my chair and bowing.

“You are, no doubt, Mari”, said the queen in a quiet, still voice, “I have

been expecting you to join us. Now our meeting can start.”

Orsino must have seen my puzzled expression.

“What has happened is that we’ve had to commission a professional to

evaluate the whole scheme. Before it’s too late. We’re just two spirits. We

need an outsider to give some advice.”

“I see,” I said, pretending that I understood.

“This professional is now on his way here to deliver his report. You are to

hear the results too.”

“Am I allowed to know his name and his position?”

“He has many names, or rather any name you care to provide for him is fine.

It makes no difference to him. All names are the same. As to his job, he’s a kind

of unusual performance artist and an iconoclastic oracle all rolled into one.”

“Is he a comedian of some sort, then?”

“Yes, that too, and since he doesn’t care what you call him, we happen to

use the name Mr. E. And, by the way, all the ways about here do belong to him.”

Orsino laughed.

“But that is that quote from Alice again”, I said, “and it’s too ridiculous of you

to mix fiction into reality.”

Sumiré raised an eyebrow, “What do you know about mixing fiction and

reality?” she asked, “Have you ever tried it?”

I could see that Orsino and Sumiré made a perfect pair: both bizarre and out

there. I was glad I did not have to live here with them.

We did not have to wait long for Mr. E.. An icy gust blew through the room

and lifted the curtains momentarily, and through the door walked a spare, a thin,

rather theatrical figure wearing a black suit with an incongruous pattern of

apple-red polka dots. A small vividly-colored green snake was wound around his

neck. It raised its head to stare at us blankly. Mr. E laughed and patted the

creature gently.

“Horatio, be nice.”

Mr. E bowed before us and the snake hung down from his neck before it

curled upwards muscularly, probing the air near Mr. E’s ear.

We were all mesmerized. The snake seemed to be whispering in his ear.

“Is he hungry,” asked Queen Sumiré, “or is he merely curious about his new

surroundings?”

“Horatio is a girl“ said Mr. E, “I didn’t realize until after she and I had already

settled on the name. She’s quite feminine, an utter charmer. In my case, my

little green snake is the charmer and I, it is I who is the one captivated and

charmed---by her!”

He laughed at his own joke, though no one else laughed.

Orsino, half-scowling, looked horrified by the creepy man and his odd pet.

Sumiré looked slightly amused. I didn’t know what to think. My face must have

been a blank. I hoped it was. I only wanted to have this weirdness be over as

fast as possible so I could return to Haruki.

Then Mr. E waved the sheaf of papers in his hand.

“I have the report here that you commissioned me to write,” he said in a dry

whispery voice.

“Very well,” said Sumiré, sitting back in her chair, “we are ready to listen.”

Mr. E looked directly at me and I could see that his eyes were like a snake’s

eyes, with hardly any white part, just circles and sparkles of yellow and black

and green. He regarded me coldly for a fraction of a second and then, as if he

had judged me and found me deficient, he turned his gaze from me just as

quickly.

Not waiting further, Mr. E began reading the report he had brought. His

fingers were long and elegant as he managed the papers very precisely.

“You have asked me to ascertain the chances that this project will succeed.

In my opinion, the chances are low and the mission should be aborted as soon

as it is safely possible to do so.”

Only focusing on Sumiré and the fact that Orsino had a wife, I had

momentarily forgotten that Orsino knew all about Vector and that I was

somehow connected to it through him too. It didn’t occur to me, therefore, that

Mr. E was going to discuss Vector at all. I idly, so stupidly, it seems to me now,

wondered what project it was these bizarre odd creatures of the ether had on

their airy minds.

Rearranging the solar system, vacuuming up the stars and moons from their

infinite nothingness, cloaking Jupiter in miles of soft blue felt so that it would

become invisible?.

The Queen looked down at her hands.

Mr. E. was watching completely without any emotion at all. He might as well

have been a cicada on a tree or a stone on the ground.

“Can we know some more of your reasoning?” asked the Queen in a quiet

voice.

“The problem is that Vector’s power has been totally misjudged by all of you.

Vector will win, for a while, at least. But Haruki’s information will make no

difference.”

Vector.

Not Jupiter or the stars, infinity, or absurd moons, the safer things that I

wouldn’t have cared about one bit.

A merciless little trapdoor in my chest opened up and my heart fell down all

the way and stayed down in the darkness, abandoned and alone and sobbing.

I knew that it was no use to argue.

I sat, frozen, like an ice princess, while he continued.

“Vector staged everything, including faking the suicide of Dr, Fukuzawa. It

was all a trick to see if Haruki would be loyal even after he found out about the

plans. There was some worry that he was friends with an American scientist he

was working with at the lab who found out about what Vector was doing and quit

her job rather than participate in the scheme. Vector wanted to see to what

extent Haruki was opposed to the project. The agents were just recruited to test

him and mentally and physically exhaust him. Of course, if they really had been

interested in silencing him, it would have been quite easy. They are very

powerful.”

Orsino interrupted, “And even we spirits thought Vector’s project would not

be able to stand the scrutiny of public opinion. We drastically miscalculated.”

“Drastically, indeed, but Haruki and Mari must agree to stop trying to contact

journalists. Vector would certainly prefer to manage the release of the news in

its own way.”

“Mari,” said Orsino, turning to me, “do you understand? We didn’t know it

until just now, but it has all been an interesting farce, a kind of strange comedy,

but now you and Haruki are to stop running. The comedy is finished.”

I saw no tears in his eyes.

“The comedy is finished”, I repeated blankly.

At the edge of my mind, a small horizon of light flamed up in the dark sky of

fear I had been living under, and I felt immensely relieved.

Vector’s power was a natural and huge thing and I had learned not to try, to

risk, to cry, to fear anymore. It had nothing to do with me any longer.

Supernatural authorities whose legitimacy was beyond question had explained it

all to me, and I was satisfied to retire.

Haruki was going to be surprised by what I would have to say.

But eventually, he was going to believe me too.

I would figure out exactly how to tell him later when I got back to the love

hotel.

Probably he was going to be just as relieved as I was. Playing at being secret

agents was hardly our thing.

Mr. E. wrapped Horatio around his wrist, bowed slightly, then turned and left

without another word, without even a good-bye.

It didn’t seem rude; merely, it was not his style, nor among his duties, to bid

farewell to anyone. I occurred to me then that “E” might mean “Ever-present” or

“Everywhere”, but I knew better then to pose the question to his slender, lonely

form as it retreated through the dark shadows beyond the open door. He had

divulged as much as he was going to.

It was as if a party was ending, the guests were leaving, and it was already

night in the forest. I was wondering how I was going to get home again.

Orsino and Queen sat quietly at the head of the table. The room grew darker.

“Excuse me,” I asked, clearing my throat loudly, “how am I to get back to the

Earth?”

“Ahh,” said Queen Sumiré, smiling and shaking off her melancholy mood,

“you remind me of Alice in Wonderland or maybe Dorothy in the Land of Oz.”

I smiled at her whimsical comment.

The queen continued, “They also wondered how to get back from their

mysterious lands. And, in the end they did, of course. You should find that

heartening, you know.”

“Thank you so much“, I said, trying to sound grateful for all they had done

for me this evening. I didn’t think I needed to be very grateful; they had put me

to enough trouble too.

“My dear“, said Orsino to her and patted her hand, “I shall be pleased to

escort Mari back to her planet.”

“Of course,” said the Queen, “it’s clear that you know the way far better than

I do.”

She gave me a little smile.

“I hope you are not too disappointed in us!”

I had to laugh.

Disappointed?

On the contrary, I had never felt so free. I was to stop running for my life and

so was my husband. Who wouldn’t be glad?

“Not at all,” I said firmly, “how could I be disappointed?”

“Good, then,” she said dismissively, “good-bye.”

She raised one hand gracefully and waved.

Chapter 27

I turned around once more to take in the room a final time. I would not be

back, I knew.

Queen Sumiré sat alone in the darkened room silently with her hands folded

on the table. What was she going to do next?

What do spirits do with all their eternities?

But then, what does anyone do with an eternity?

Orsino followed me out the door. We went back down the stairs and out the

next door that led to the drawbridge.

I was looking very forward to being an ordinary human being again on Earth

and never seeing another ghost or discussing odd, esoteric and obscure topics

with mysterious spirits in strange dimensions where I had no business to

venture.

I was free!!

The forest was now dark but a strange blue moon, about three times the size

of the one we usually see on earth, hung in the sky above us and lit the way.

“I suppose that I’ll never see you again then,“ I said loudly to the air in front

of me, though Orsino was behind me. I was surprised at how cheerful my voice

sounded to me.

“People should learn to never say never, you know,“ came the answer, a

little severely, behind me, “never is a long time.”

“Well,“ I said lightly, “I don’t mean to be rude or inconsiderate, but it is

enough now.”

Orsino was silent for a while, then he spoke again.

“What is the saddest thing you know?”

“I give up”, I said, lightly again, “look, I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood for

banter and wit. I just want to get home, back to my family now.”

“Yes, well, I was just thinking that Vector and its plans may be the saddest

thing in the world,” said the spirit mournfully, catching up to me.

“Not at all,” I said firmly, “Vector is just borrowing the Pacific Ocean. The

sun’s rays will strike it again one day, all over the place, when the satellites fall,

one day, whenever that will be. Hundreds of years? Thousands? I have no idea

nor do I care.. That’s when the Pacific Ocean springs to life again, although

maybe it takes time and some species are lost forever, which is indeed sad.

Vector’s time to be powerful is limited. So who cares? Not me, certainly. No,

Vector’s plans are not the saddest thing in the world.”

“I see your point,” said Orsino.

“But in fact,” I said, continuing since I wanted to divert him from his sadness,

“It so happens that I have, serendipitously, already given some thought to the

saddest things in the world.”

It was a funny thing, but I actually had dwelled at length, in a reverie I had

tumbled deeply into in a thrift shop, on this topic, and come up with my own

idiosyncratic answer.

“Could you enlighten me?” He looked hopeful.

I knew he was relieved to see I was being myself again, and that I was not

upset over his being married.

I knew that I would not be seeing him again, ever.

But I didn’t say anything about that.

“All right, then,” I said, smiling mysteriously, “please don’t be surprised,

then, when I tell you that the saddest thing I know were the sewing boxes at Fujii

Shokai”.

I had seen so many of them, and opened them, too. I was always so

excessively curious. Curiosity was my biggest failing, always.

But no matter what I had found inside, pins, needles, yarn, thread, little bits

of faded cotton, I always felt a pang, a stab, of pain and bitter suffering.

Orsino looked amazed, “The sewing boxes at Fujii Shokai? What are you

talking about?” he said, forgetting all about Vector.

“Old Mr. Fujii, who’s retired now, by the way, was a junk dealer in Kiyama. He

had an old wooden shop on the main old road, a very narrow road, to Hagi. He

used to make his money by cleaning out old houses, usually after someone had

died. The next of kin would ask him to come and cart all the old belongings off

for a negotiated price. Then he sold the junk from the houses in his shop. The

place was a huge jumble of old chairs, kimonos, many pairs of shoes, dusty

comic books from the 1950s, all kinds of souvenirs and trinkets people had

brought back from all over the world, pots and pans, nearly everything you could

imagine. I used to spend hours there looking through the things he had. But

often, sadly, I would come across old sewing boxes. They could be made of

wicker or they could be a small arrangement of drawers made of paulownia or

cedar with wood inlay designs, sakura flowers shedding their petals, or bamboo,

or a rabbit, even. Somehow, I always felt a pressing need to open these sewing

boxes.”

“Why?”

“Because that was where time had stopped, of course,” I said, “that was

where the lady of the house had closed the box the final time before she had

passed away. And there I could see the state of affairs she had left,

inadvertently, in the sewing box. The needle still threaded with green silk thread

to repair a kimono now long gone. The thimble with rust spots. The little skein of

cotton, half-gone, with tangles she had meant to straighten out. Oh, if only she

had had more time! The things she wanted to do! The things people always

meant to do! But there wasn’t time! Is it not sad?”

“Ah,” said Orsino sympathetically, but a little curtly, I thought.

“Yes, and even if they put their other affairs in order, they were bound to

ignore the sewing box, so trivial, as it was. It is something they may have used

every day. But finally, sewing tasks take a back seat. And so many sewing

repairs went unfinished! There lies the sadness. To .open these boxes is to see

the frailty that everyone tries to hide. But finally, they can’t hide it. It is

uncovered one day, by a stranger in a junk shop! That is where the sadness

lies.”

Failed plans and half-finished projects! Exposed for anyone to see.

“How gloomy this conversation is! How mournfully you speak! You are going

too far, really.” said Orsino, picking up the pace with his feet and waving a

mosquito or gnat away from his ear.

I matched his speed, though not easily.

“Well, it was you who asked me about the saddest thing in the world,” I said

somewhat accusingly, “As it so happens, I had given some thought to this very

topic and so I wanted to explain it fully to you.”

“I see your point, of course, and knowing you and your love of poetry, you

would no doubt like to add in some poignant and artful words like wreckage and

ruins, a state of disarray and termination, and so forth and so on.”

Wreckage and ruins, a state of disarray and termination.

“The way you say it, it doesn’t sound sad at all!” I said half-admiringly, “It

sounds rather lovely, and I shall never be able to remember the sewing boxes

with that old perfect sadness again!”

“My pleasure,” he said modestly, “Now see, can you look ahead? There is the

gate again.”

“The gate?” I said, feigning ignorance. I knew that I did want to stay, still,

here with him. Our conversations were marvelous and I would miss them

forever.

“You remember the gate, surely? And beyond it are the clouds, the sky, the

Earth, the love hotel, Haruki, and everything else you left behind.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice sounding so flat and simple. I felt as if I were being

thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Never to see him again!

“Oh, Orsino!” I took a gulp of the chilly night air and plunged on with a

sudden, radical idea that had seized me, “Isn’t there---in all your plentiful stock

of cosmic locations--- another dimension we can escape in together, one without

that solemn, serious Sumiré of yours, one without Ha----“

The words died on my lips, a chill silenced my heart. Leaving Haruki, my

partner, half of myself, was impossible, more bleak than never seeing a mere

ghost, no matter how brilliant and witty, again..

“I’m sorry,” I said contritely, “I did not mean a word of that just now. I’m

terribly sorry, I was seized with a kind of desperation at never seeing you again.

But I was speaking, as I’m sure you can imagine, only in jest.”

“Yes,” said Orsino, smiling, “I shall not forget you. But, speaking of

forgetting, there is one thing I forgot to tell you one thing, one small detail.

Haruki is no longer in the love hotel.”

“What?” I cried, “where have you beamed him? What have you done with

him?””

“No, no, nothing like that. He is nearby the love hotel. To be precise, he is at

the bus stop on the road next to the love hotel.”

“Why is he at a bus stop, of all places? What have you done to make him go

there? What mind games have you been playing with him?”

I was starting to get furious.

“I did send out a signal, that was all----and Haruki received it in his dreams----

and it was simply to go and meet you at the bus stop. So that is where he is. He

is perfectly all right. He is probably asleep there, for it’s still very early in the

morning.”

“But why? Why the bus stop?”

“Why not? You can watch the sun rise together. Then take the first bus back

to the station.”

“It all sounds so simple when you say it,” I said, no longer upset.

He put his hand on the latch of the gate, “Now, when I open the gate for you,

you must fold yourself up into a ball and then jump straight down, like you’re

plunging into a pool.”

I laughed, “It sounds so easy!”

“It is easy,” he agreed, “and then you must peer out at what you see below

you, and when you see mountains in glowing red and orange colors, you will

know that you have reached the border. The sky is dark at this time so you won’t

see much else except those magical mountains, which look like they’re on fire.

Then unfold yourself and try to soar more like a bird, and if you start to plunge

down towards the Earth, for that is where you will be after passing over the red

and orange mountains, you will feel a strange and powerful current of air under

you, and that will be me, carrying you back.”

“Thank you,” I said, “that is most kind of you.”

“I’ll be invisible,” he warned, “but do not be afraid. And once you have

gotten through and find yourself beside Haruki, you can be quite sure that you

are safe and all you need to do is return the files to Vector. This misadventure is

over, with not too much harm done withal, I hope.”

What kind of a bizarre word was ‘withal’ anyway?

“Not too much harm done,” I said, “I think.”

“Well, then, that’s just fabulous,” he said politely.

“Yes, it’s really fabulous,” I said, “really fabulous. Fabulous withal. Or should I

say ‘withal fabulous’? Sometimes your terminology is completely beyond me.”

“Oh Mari!” he said with a little laugh, “do you not know---do you never

know---- when to stop?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “I do know, of course.”

He smiled a bit ruefully at me.

“That’s fine, then. That’s good.. Now, are you ready? I shall open the gate

and off you go!”

He looked so forlorn suddenly. I started to feel sorry for him and I wanted to

cheer him up, one final time, but I didn’t know how. All I could do was just

proceed with the farewells.

“Good-bye, Orsino!” I said, gently pressing his hand.

I stepped over to the gate and waited for him to open it.

But instead, Orsino opened his arms wide. Wanting to make the moment last,

I stepped deliberately and slowly into his arms and he hugged me tightly.

“Don’t forget me,” he said softly and sadly.

“That would be impossible,” I said through my tears..

“You won’t be able to see me or hear me on your planet, but I’ll be there,

maybe inside a venerable Buddhist temple you happen to be visiting or on the

beach at Hagi when you’re swimming or in your garden. Look around a second

or two---no more----and try to imagine, try to feel, not to think, where I might be.

Then, at that exact moment, look up and chances are, you’ll be meeting my

eyes with yours. You’ll sense it.”

“But I won’t be sure, right?”

I was crying by now.

“That is true. But you’ll find that that won’t matter. Trust me.”

“Yes.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

We let go of each other and he pushed the gate open and I jumped down into

the cool foggy air surrounding the mysterious forest.

Almost immediately, I was spinning so fast---he hadn’t told me about that

part, which just goes to show how much sense he had, I guess, since he hadn’t

wanted to frighten me----that I couldn’t look back up at him and that mysterious

forest, through the space and the darkness, no matter how hard I tried.

Chapter 28

Soon I was flying over the glowing red and orange mountains. I straightened

my body out and felt the strong current of wind supporting me. Was I heading

east or west? A cold breeze with a burst of snow hit me in the face. The snow

continued for a few minutes and then stopped.

The sky was halfway between light and dark, and below now I saw lights and

roads. Soon I was floating slowly near the road beside the love hotel. There,

indeed, was the bus stop, luckily one with a small roof and a bench.

Haruki was on the bench; he was sitting up, but I could see that he was fast

asleep, his head propped against the bus shelter. The air above had been thin

and frosty and I was out of breath and my fingers were cold.

I sat down beside Haruki.

It was exciting to know that all our troubles were over, that we were up

against unstoppable forces that had nothing to do with us, and which would

barely notice us as long as we didn’t bother them, or try to. It wasn’t frustrating,

rather it was liberating. The whole quest had ended up being a cleansing

investigation into true and ethereal futility----and how marvelous to encounter it

in its purest form and then to be able to leave it alone! The answer to the quest

had come back, it had come unfailingly, and it had taken the surprising form of

an inhuman snake charmer.

Just stop.

Now we knew we could and we should.

Mr. E was an authority whose strong and reliable point was that he was

incapable of lying.or being wrong. Anyone could see that. Even a stubborn

person like me. And this authority was so final that it meant that all our

responsibility to fight had been lifted from our shoulders.

The fight was already lost---and therefore, for us, it was also, paradoxically,

also won.

Since we were basically irrelevant. And there lay our freedom and our

victory. Giving up wasn’t weak or spineless. It was natural, graceful, perfect, and

safe.

The pinkish dawn sky softly unfurled before us and I continued to sit quietly,

wondering how to tell Haruki the good news.

He stirred, and in the light, I saw his troubled, worried expression. He was so

burdened by worry that he was sleeping with a face of fear.

That was all over now. We were free. He just didn’t know it yet.

Not wanting to wait any longer to tell him, I gently shook his shoulder. He

opened his eyes.

“Mari!”

“Good morning!” I smiled.

“I was waiting for you here. I knew you’d come! I woke up and you were

gone, but you know in a love hotel, you can’t leave without paying, the door

won’t unlock. I noticed the window was open, so I thought you had jumped out

and gone for a walk.“

“That’s close,” I said.

“I thought you’d be coming along to this bus stop, so I paid for the room in

the machine and came out here to wait for you.”

“Thank you” I said.

“Are you ready to make a start? Are you hungry? We don’t have any food.

Maybe we can find something at the station.”

“Haruki, you must listen to me. It will be surprising to you but we can and we

should forget all about the idea of standing in Vector’s way. It won’t work. Last

night, I had a strange experience. I found out enough to know that our quest is

utterly in vain.”

Amazed, Haruki stared at me.

“No, but listen,” I said and told him all about Orsino, Sumiré and Mr. E. I left

nothing out, even the affair I had had with Orsino.

Haruki was a bit overwhelmed by the whole story. He was silent for a few

moments. I was curious about what he would ask me about first, the romance or

the others aspects. Finally he spoke.

“Sumiré?” he said, “it is the same name as the woman who called me to

warn me to leave that night.”

“Yes, taking on a human form, I guess she was an agent posing as a Vector

employee. She and Orsino got an idea to stop the satellite project. Rather

foolishly, they decided to get us involved without having really thought the

whole thing through. Finally, in order to be really sure that our mission was not

impossible, they commissioned this Mr. E, some sort of ultimate authority,

apparently, to investigate and then write a report. I was invited to hear the

results of the report. I’m afraid it’s no use for us to continue.”

“But what about Dr, Fukuzawa?”

“He is not really dead. It was all a ruse. Vector decided to test your loyalty by

giving you the information and seeing what you would do with it. Apparently,

they suspected that you wouldn’t like their project because you were such good

friends with Lisa Reed, whom, just as you suspected, had quit when she found

out what Project Elsinore really was.”

Haruki wasn’t looking as disappointed as I had feared he would. By the

expression on his face, I guessed he was at that stage when people are halfway

to changing their minds but haven’t yet made the whole transition. He naturally

brought up a point I had expected him to bring up.

“But, Mari, I still think that the number of people who’d be against Vector’s

project would be significant. Just to tell the world and build some support against

it would be useful and satisfying.”

“I would agree with you, but Mr. E made me understand that the support,

below the surface, for Vector’s project is much more significant than you and I

had imagined. We would find ourselves on the margins, the isolated fringes. I

don’t care about that, of course, but not on these terms, I mean being on the

run. I’ll campaign against the project when it has been announced, and join the

tiny minority of activists. But this spy thing is just foolish.”

“Well, are they after us or not, then? Do they see us as a threat or not?”

“I wonder if they were seeing how well you’d do up against them. To see

what you can do, what your skills are. They may be thinking of offering you a lot

more money to help them with a marketing strategy.”

“A marketing strategy? I’m a scientist!”

“Well, what better way to market this project than have a scientist talking

about it, for example, on the internet or news shows? You know, reassure

people. “

“But I was against it! And I still am!”

“Yes, I know, but they may even be able to use that to their advantage. In

order to stop you from becoming another Lisa Reed maybe, they involved you

like this. And if someone who opposed Vector managed to get her to talk, then

there could be a threat there, obviously. Then their plan is probably to bring you

in, show their magnanimous side, get you to realize there was no other way.

They are very clever. They may regret letting Lisa leave. Her silence and her

absence speak more loudly than petitions and campaigns.”

Haruki looked a little bit exasperated. “Whose side are you on, anyway? You

sound like them, I mean if you are persuading me to quit,” he said.

“No, I’m not. I’m not saying that you should work for them or promote their

vision. All I’m saying is that defying them is no earthly use. They are set to win.

They know they will win. If anything is fated, their victory is.”

Haruki stood up, agitated, and said, “but all----all!---- you’re going on are the

conclusions of an odd cosmic cipher, a creature without even a proper name, and

the subsequent judgments of two ghosts. What you saw and what you heard, all of

it----all!----could have been a rough, false and shallow dream, Mari. You know,

people have sexual fantasies all the time when they’re asleep. You just

remembered yours. This Orsino guy, a vapor, a vision, nothing more.”

“You’re not even a bit concerned or jealous?” I asked, partly in a teasing tone.

“No, I don’t think people can control their dreams, and besides your

unconscious may have changed the names and faces of real people you know.

Orsino could really be me in disguise.”

“Whoever he was, and whatever sort of dream it was, it’s convincing enough.

I know they are right. I want out of this,” I said quietly.

Actually, I was ready to quit and let Haruki continue his vain quest alone, if

that’s what he wanted. I had had enough. But I loved him enough to try to make

him stop, too.

I paused for a second and a new idea occurred to me, and I continued

“Maybe it’s because the whole basis for the project is energy. A silence

surrounds the topic of energy. If you try to involve yourself---or insert yourself---

in the basic and fundamental connections between a living and material

organism and its energy supply, that’s a serious impertinence, a taboo, that’s a

kind of violation---and therefore also a kind of intimacy---- that no one is ready

for and no one welcomes. Everyone agrees that only the economy, with

guidance from elected governments, perhaps, can get between a persona and

his or her energy. It’s a fight, and a struggle every day for us, all of us, to get

enough. Let’s stay out of it, shall we? Let’s do what the universe would do. Let’s

just keep quiet. Hands off.”

I lifted my palms in the air theatrically.

Haruki laughed and sat down beside me again. I knew he had capitulated

and that I had won. I felt so relieved. I was so tired of playing James Bond, a role

that fit me badly.

Haruki looked thoughtful.

“Did you say that people are silent about energy?” he asked without waiting

for me to answer, “Maybe, after all, then for us after this, indeed, the rest is

silence.” He somehow looked happy and serious at the same time. The sun’s

rays suddenly struck his face and mine, too, as the sun edged up over the

horizon. I could feel the warmth.

The bus would be coming soon.

“The rest is what?” I asked, mystified.

“That is the last line that Prince Hamlet speaks before he dies. I thought it

might fit here, that’s all. Does it? The rest is silence.”

“I’m really not sure, but let’s say ‘yes’ anyway. It fits. If it makes you happy.”

Haruki stared with a preoccupied expression into the middle distance. Then

he looked at me

“That’s not all, you know,” he said, “Then there’s Love and be silent. Those

are Cordelia’s words as she chooses not to get involved in King Lear’s project to

find out who loves him best.”

“Love, and be silent” I said, “now that could fit.”

“Mari?” Haruki paused and looked puzzled, “Did you say that Sumiré’s

husband was named Orsino?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because it is another strange Shakespearean connection. Orsino is the

name of a major character in Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night. He’s the

duke, a man in love with a beautiful and noble lady, who won’t love him. And he

ends up with someone else entirely, a stranger from a distant land.”

“Really,” I said, carelessly, “I’m sure I don’t know, and besides there must be

many Orsinos in this world. The name must be quite common, after all. It sounds

kind of Italian.”

We sat in silence for a while. The bus arrived and we climbed on; we were

the only passengers.

“Let’s call Vector now, then and offer the files back”, said Haruki, pulling out

his compromised mobile phone.

“Great,” I said, “Then I’ll go back to Kiyama with Yuuki. I hope I still have my

job!”

I laughed, since only a few days had passed. My job was no doubt still safe.

Haruki paused and looked serious.

“I think I’ll be going back to Kiyama with you, too,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” said Haruki, “I’m not really interested in working for Vector anymore.”

“But how about all your beloved research? It might be useful for some future

humans. And how could you live and be happy without it?”

“Well, I’ll get some sort of job in Kiyama. Then I’ll see about another research

job. I don’t know how useful my research would be for anybody, though. But for

a while I could drive a cab, maybe. And maybe I can work as a teacher at a juku

in the evenings. Or, how about using our savings to buy a rice field and I could

spend some time growing rice for us?”

“You a farmer? Now that is something I’d like to see!”

Epilogue

What happened in the end? Vector announced its plans and, as Mr. E had

predicted, only a small fringe protested them. Haruki and I were terribly proud

that Nami, our daughter, was one of those protesting the project.

But everything did not go so smoothly for Vector after that. It was the

economy, that writhing and changeable chimera of a foe, and not Haruki and I,

who came to stand in Vector’s way. In a way, this was so ironic, since Vector had

worshipped so devoutly at the altar of this very same economy, prodding it and

raveling it and massaging it and pinching it and wounding it and kissing it, and

currying favor with it, and being involved night and day with tearfully pleasing

it-----until, one day, not too much later, it seemed like this triumphant beast of a

creature had simply gotten bored of Vector’s close and servile attentions and

had galloped away, freeing itself in only a moment or two from Vector’s

expensive, custom-built confines. I speak allegorically, of course.

To be more specific, Vector’s financing collapsed halfway through, when a

large number of satellites had been manufactured but only a few had been

launched. Vector’s debts became unpayable, investors lost confidence and the

credit markets ran dry. Somehow Vector’s costs had all skyrocketed faster than

the satellites could be completed and actually rocketed into the sky to offset the

huge bills. Commentating analysts took turns to assign reasons for the collapse.

Was it just poor management at the top? Or was the planet, in fact, itself to

blame? More succinctly, had its notorious, swirling, rocky depths---these most

hazardous vicissitudes---played false with the truer, fairer and more trusting

hearts of men? In any case, as it appeared from my distant vantage point near

my little green mountain, the enormous planet simply closed slowly around a

dumbfounded Vector, as it struggled and retreated blankly and obscurely into its

new and unwelcome night of credit-unworthiness and debt restructuring.

The reason I bring this up is that Haruki received some rather amusing

emails from former colleagues who were still working in Kubatsu. They vaguely

described the difficulties the academics had in working smoothly with the

corporate types and Haruki explained to me that, reading between the lines, he

could see that in-fighting, egotistical posturing and personality clashes lay

behind the problems.

For reasons of pride, the project that Vector had proposed was never

cancelled, but its scope was redefined many times and limited again and then

again, until the number of satellites that actually were deployed in the end was

a negligible number---I even forget how many----and the Pacific Ocean probably

(I can only say probably) suffered no more from their ventures than it had from

other similar ideas.

Haruki stayed in Kiyama. We found an old wooden farmhouse in rather bad

condition near the mountains and bought it with our savings. He bought a good

telescope and set it up to view the night sky. He, now alone, continues to do

research on what before been called “Project Elsinore”, the mission to discover

whether or not our sun orbits another larger and heavier star, and if so, which

one. Haruki has changed the name from “Project Elsinore” to the “Hamlet

Paradigm”, though, maybe in an effort to put his Vector adventure behind him.

The research is now entirely self-funded, so it is slow going, but he tells me, in

layman’s terms, about his progress and I hope that one day, when his findings

are more conclusive, you will hear all about them through the media. And more

than that, I hope that when the star is identified you may search for it yourself in

the night sky, and imagine all the people, sharing a certain hope, who looked for

it through time.

Lisa Reed and Kazuma Yamaguchi are still on their boat, touring the ocean

and the music world. Their duo has gotten more than a little famous in folk

music circles and sometimes Haruki, Yuuki, and I watch the performances they

post on YouTube.

Lisa Reed has also continued to be a Shakespearean and a few months ago

Haruki told me about a paper she gave at a conference in Paris: she and her

husband arrived by boat and even docked in the Seine and made quite an

impression. Apparently, at this conference, she ‘unmasked’ Hamlet, naming him

as a fighter through time for the sun economy against Claudius, associated with

bad smells, who, Lisa asserts, is coal. I asked Haruki how it all worked and

Haruki explained that it all went back to Giordano Bruno, because it was Bruno

who had first explained the significance of the sun for us: it would continue to

shine after everything else was gone. “Claudius’s name” Haruki told me, “is

significant because it echoes Claudius Ptolomey, whose geocentric model of the

solar system prevailed for centuries before Copernicus published his idea of a

heliocentric solar system.”

“I see,” I said, suddenly seeing the connection between different aspects of

Claudius, “both ideas, coal and geocentrism, are away from the sun.”

“Making Shakespeare, in a fascinating way, a secret agent who encoded the

metabolic rift into his plays.”

At the time, I considered not asking Haruki what the ‘metabolic rift’ was, or

how, exactly Shakespeare was a secret agent of it. Academics talk too much and

I was risking having to listen to a long lecture about something that wouldn’t

interest me at all. But, then, of course, my stupid curiosity got the better of me

and I asked him.

“The metabolic what?”

“The metabolism of the earth---you know, it’s comparable to a person’s

metabolism. The energy that passes through the system. A planet---or the

beings on it----processes energy just like any person. For a very long time, all the

creatures on our planet used only the sun’s energy, but that changed, starting

with coal use, very slowly at first. The metabolic rift is the transition from the

sun’s energy to fossil fuels as the primary form used. England was the first

country to undergo the transition, way back in the late 1500s. The rift opened

there, and has continued with oil being added to coal. Country after country has

stopped using the sun and in fact closed off the ways the sun could reach the

earth, for example with huge cement developments, in order to smooth the path

for fossil fuels----that is the metabolic rift.”

“I see” I said.

“Shakespeare knew----it was Bruno who had shown it----that the metabolic

rift would close one day.”

I had had enough of the lecture. Bad news, or good news, I didn’t know or

care. But I did know there was nothing I could do about it. All I got was an image

of the hugeness and vastness of the cosmos and its effects. A supertanker

moving through the waves, oblivious.

Dismissively, and in my most scholarly voice, to shut Haruki up, I said, “Oh,

but that could take ages.”

“Indeed”, said Haruki, putting his straw hat on and going off to weed the

vegetable field.

As for the old house that belonged to Haruki’s grandparents, it is still there in

the forest near Muroji and we’ve been back once or twice to rummage through it

and save what we can before the roof and the walls fall down on top of

everything. I took the shinobue flute out, polished it up, and have even learned

to play it a bit. The two hina dolls, the wise old man and the musician, are

decorations on my bookshelf and Yuuki has the ink stand and brushes. Yuuki is a

tall young man now, and though he’s not exactly a Shakespearean like Haruki,

he heard the word ‘Hamlet’ so much that he playfully started calling Sam our

antic Abyssinian cat “Samlet”. The name stuck, somehow.

Our house has a small rice paddy and a vegetable garden and Haruki started

cultivating them. Also, we have a few ramshackle outbuildings. In one of them,

we found a few boxes of old dishes, worn-out electronics, old kimonos and so

forth, and I got the idea to start a kind of junk shop or recycle shop. Haruki made

a sign, just a simple sign, “Recycle”, and hung it outside. People bring us old

items to sell or we ask our friends if they had any old things at home they no

longer wanted. The junk shop is, while not exactly booming, turning a slight

profit. When I am not busy at school, I go and spend time inside the shop,

dusting and sorting and putting price tags on the items: old baskets, flower

vases, cooking utensils from every decade, slippers without more than one hole

in them, painted clay souvenir masks of the gods Uzume and Tajikarao, key

chains with Hello Kitty, old T-shirts, and small items of furniture.

At such times, it is impossible for me not to recollect the carefree hours I

used to spend in my younger days, wandering around Fujii Shokai while old Mr.

Fujii, dressed in dark cotton trousers and a blue shirt, and with a narrow cotton

towel around his neck, in a far-off space in the vast, dark, crumbling interior,

sorted through the collection of junk in his shop, now so sadly closed.

Falling into similar reveries in my own similarly falling-down shop, I have a

difficult time to separate the past and the present, the junk shop of now and the

other one in my memory: Oh, I exclaim in my mind, I remember the sewing

boxes, I remember the masks, the silk, moth-eaten obis, and I can still recollect

my surprise when I came across an usu, a hollowed out tree stump to be used to

pound mochi rice. I remember the mountains of scratchy, dusty polyester

curtains, so esoterically, unfathomably useless now, though not before, and the

numerous soup ladles, some of wood and some of metal, and the stacks of old

gramophone records, the photos of the stars on the covers fading.

The narrow walkways through the uneven old wooden shop, even now, in my

mind, are still uneasily traversable; I must still watch my step, even in my

daydreams, but I do know that just waiting, somewhere nearby, is another

treasure to be discovered, something old and covered artfully with the effects of

time, something oddly-shaped, something mysterious and long, long out of use,

but worthwhile, still perhaps useful and above all, far above all else, quite and

endlessly fantastical.

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