Kindred Spirits: A Novel

Kindred Spirits

A Novel

by Kim Matics

Copyright © 2020 Kim Matics

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Places, names, characters and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Synopsis

Chapter 1: The Professor’s Tragedy

Chapter 2: Family Wake

Chapter 3: Requiem Without Words

Chapter 4: Sara’s Life-changing Accident

Chapter 5: Realizing Aspirations

Chapter 6: Orientation Session

Chapter 7: Give and Take

Chapter 8: Bridging Deep Sorrows

Chapter 9: The Butoh Shadow

Chapter 10: A Gathering of Words

Chapter 11: Autumn in Kyoto

Chapter 12: Hiei-zan Excursion

Chapter 13: At the Foot of the Mountain

Chapter 14: Exploring the Rokuhara District

Chapter 15: Entering Rokuhara-mitsu-ji

Chapter 16: Tuning In, Tuning Out

Chapter 17: On to Saitama in the New Year

Chapter 18: A Charismatic Monk

Chapter 19: Exploring Kita-in

Chapter 20: Historical Secrets of Kita-in

Chapter 21: Coping with Death

Chapter 22: En Route to Toyama

Chapter 23: Treasures of Toyama

Chapter 24: Ruminations on the Project

Chapter 25: Spring in Nara: Kofuku-ji

Chapter 26: Exploring Kofuku-ji

Chapter 27: What Happened at the Pond?

Chapter 28: Todai-ji’s Significance

Chapter 29: Highlights of Todai-ji

Chapter 30: Relaxing at Deer Park Inn

Chapter 31: Excursion to Horyu-ji

Chapter 32: Exploring the Sai-in Garan

Chapter 33: Horyu-ji’s To-in Garan

Chapter 34: Without Dreams, Within Dreams

Chapter 35: An Impermanent State of Being

Chapter 36: Exhale the Past, Inhale the Future

Acknowledgements

Cast of Characters

Alphabetical Index of Historical Persons

About the Author

Synopsis

A harried university professor struggles with a personal tragedy in the midst of creative stasis. Prof. Dr. Hayakawa Tomomori feels overwhelmed by his regimented teaching profession and stale family lifestyle. He escapes by retreating into daydreams about Heian Japan. His visions frequently drift into fantastic wish fulfillment territory. In an effort to make sense of his contemporary existence due to a strong inclination for the past, the professor formulates a unique acculturation project exemplifying Old Japan’s cultural and spiritual values. It may consume him in the end.

Chapter 1

The Professor’s Tragedy

He could not believe it. The voice on the telephone sounded like a disembodied spirit from the Netherworld.

The anonymous stranger spoke in a straightforward albeit phlegmatic manner. The unknown caller reported the death of Tomiko, his beloved daughter. Suddenly Prof. Hayakawa Tomomori felt numb. He could hardly register the graphic and unsparing details delivered in a monotone over a crackling transmitter. The tenuous line of communication broke up periodically. He heard only intermittent static between the gaps.

According to the bland speaker who claimed to be calling from Negishi Hospital in Musashidai, the accident occurred at an intersection near Tokyo Noko Daigaku (TUAT), the highly-competitive private university where Tomiko had embarked on her sophomore year. His twenty-year-old daughter prided herself on being an efficient multi-tasking person. Dr. Hayakawa surmised she became engrossed with her Smartphone while absentmindedly crossing the road. Her father knew Tomiko tended to be a thoughtless face-down person constantly fiddling with her multi-feature mobile. As a responsible parent he had often warned her about this dangerous habit. Tragically, to no avail.

The hospital bureaucrat informed that law enforcement officials had the driver in custody. The suspect named Mr. Tahashi confessed to being distracted while texting on his Smartphone. Even after striking the similarly preoccupied undergraduate, Takahashi remained unaware. He assumed the slight bump felt in the Peugeot was a sleeping policeman spread across the road, just to remind drivers to slow down before crossing the intersection. The police mentioned that if Takahashi had not stirred himself to take a look he might have been guilty of a hit-and-run crime. The caller reiterated that Takahashi was being held in custody at the local police station near Negishi Hospital, if the professor wanted to meet him.

Prof. Hayakawa felt that was not necessary at this juncture. He reckoned how the preoccupied driver and the equally inattentive victim met by happenstance. Destiny ordained that two young lives crossed paths due to the prevalence of ubiquitous texting with persons distant. This was not a meet-cute event precipitated by social media networking. This fatal assignation constituted homicide.

Takahashi, the affluent graduate student driving a shiny new Peugeot on campus, would probably be convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Serving less than ten years in a penitentiary, part of his once promising life would be wasted. Suddenly all ambitious plans for his career and personal life were irreparably ruined by a click on the Smartphone. Upon release from prison, even if Takahashi served a reduced or limited sentence, he would be forever condemned and ostracized as a former felon. How would he cope with such a disaster? The burden of guilt and shame might never be overcome.

Dr. Hayakawa clutched the phone’s receiver, trying to comprehend the awful reality of his daughter’s death and the enormity of the similarly careless driver who unwittingly crushed life out of her frail body. The professor felt gagged, strangled. Words struggled to escape from his desert-dry throat.

The disinterested informer rattled on in a matter-of-fact manner that the corpse was lying in Negishi Hospital’s morgue, awaiting identification from the next of kin. The cadaver needed to be delivered elsewhere either at home or a local funeral parlor, and the sooner, the better. However, if the parent demanded a thorough autopsy, this would require additional time and expense. The robotic speaker spewed out words and sentences in a rhythmic sing-song manner, as if regurgitating them from a prepared script. Dr. Hayakawa wondered if this woman had either memorized this spiel or was recalling keywords and stock phrases from a text in a methodically prepared hospital manual. To his mind she certainly felt no empathy with the parent of the deceased.

The professor croaked, I will cancel today’s classes and hurry there as soon as I can.

Upon acknowledging this abruptly, the caller immediately hung up without saying the decorous farewell. That would have been not only socially acceptable, but polite to one’s elder.

Still grasping the plastic phone, the professor visualized holding Tomiko wake at his traditional-style villa in southwest Tokyo. The expansive house with several add-on extensions had more than enough space to accommodate the funeral director’s paraphernalia. In his mind’s eye Hayakawa saw the professional encoffiner preparing his daughter’s slim body while family members and close friends witnessed the dignified ritual.

Dr. Hayakawa assumed that although Tomiko’s cremation might take place near his family villa in Machida-shi, the actual internment of her ashes would be in the allocated plot at the ancestral temple near Kawagoe-shi in Saitama Prefecture. The professor recalled that weekend tourists flocked to the place nicknamed Ko-Edo or Little Edo due to its traditional-styled wooden buildings preserved and/or reconstructed to emulate the nineteenth century ambience and lifestyle.

Religious-minded visitors made a special effort to locate the much earlier ninth century Tendai temple his esteemed family had supported for generations. Tourists marveled at the 538 stone statues of the Buddha’s mourning disciples on the occasion of his Parinirvana. Now, unfortunately, it was Hayakawa’s turn to grieve for the irreparable loss of his only daughter.

Prof. Hayakawa wondered if he should inform his wife and son immediately. On second thought, I will do that after identifying the body. He decided, There is no need to upset them if it is not Tomiko after all.

In his heart of hearts Dr. Hayakawa hoped against hope that the anonymous caller speaking from Negishi Hospital was wrong. Selfishly the distraught father wished that it might be another victim hit by a distracted texter, not his dear Tomiko. Then again, the professor recalled that the forthright informer mentioned that his university’s contact number was found on the body of the deceased. How otherwise would she have telephoned him? With a faint heart that made him slightly dizzy, Dr. Hayakawa realized he hoped in vain. With an aching pain in his chest he gasped, Yes, it is probably Tomiko; oh, my poor daughter!

In a way he was lamenting his own personal loss. Only his daughter knew intuitively what he was thinking and feeling at any given moment. Tomiko was his sole understanding supporter in their dysfunctional household. Only she appreciated what he was trying to achieve academically, to have some impact on their modern society.

Having finalized obligatory administrative procedures required due to unexpectedly cancelling his two upcoming afternoon lectures, the professor hailed a waiting taxi in the long queue in front of Jochi Daigaku to drive him to Negishi Hospital, hardly three kilometers from Tokyo Noko Daigaku. Now known by the rather ugly-sounding acronym TUAT, this prestigious private university had been founded in 1877. It specialized in fields Tomiko wanted to pursue: agriculture and technology. Dr. Hayakawa recalled the exciting day that TUAT accepted his daughter. She was so delighted! Her prospects seemed assured. Today, in a blink of an eye and a click on the Smartphone, all that exuberance and goodwill had come to naught.

Dr. Hayakawa continued to feel disoriented. He had the odd feeling he was observing someone sitting in the backseat of the immaculately clean taxi. The smooth transparent plastic sheets protecting dainty lace doilies made squeaky squishy sounds as he tried in vain to make himself more comfortable on the slippery seat covers. As the taxi inched through late morning traffic, the professor felt decidedly ill-at-ease and out-of-synch. In fact, he could hardly breathe in air pungent with multiple aromatic fresheners.

Time dragged as accumulated vehicles clogged the roadways. The taciturn taxi driver readjusted his snow-white gloves in an absentminded manner. He proffered no words of comfort while idling in long sluggish lines waiting to pass through pre-programmed traffic lights of short duration. How could the natty chauffer understand his grieving passenger’s anguish? Being uncertain that his daughter was indeed dead offered Dr. Hayakawa no respite from the emotional torment and stabbing pain of the anticipated confirmation of his personal tragedy.

A vivid picture of his dear daughter’s crumpled body in an oozing pool of blood kept flashing through his muddled mind. The graphic image was too horrible to contemplate. Nonetheless, Dr. Hayakawa found himself mulling over meager details the anonymous speaker had stated over the phone. The ominous call seemed ages ago, somewhere in the distant past, but in fact scarcely an hour had passed since he heard his telephone ring.

At long last the taxi approached the front entrance of Negishi Hospital. Hayakawa overpaid the mute, robotic driver and strode purposefully toward the reception counter. His inquiry about the morgue engendered countless documents to be signed and stamped with his distinctive personal seal (hanko) to authenticate any official document. He knew that a person’s stamp or seal actually carried more weight than one’s signature.

Then the pert receptionist instructed him to wait for his name to be called, as if he were a kindergarten pupil. He slumped wearily in one of a long row of sea green plastic seats. Dr. Hayakawa Tomomori, the renowned champion for reviving interest in the culture of Old Japan, was obliged to while away many minutes in anxious anticipation, waiting to be summoned to the reception desk. He felt so uncomfortable and ill at ease he almost wished his name would never be spoken. The professor compared his situation with recollected details of Franz Kafka’s 1926 thought-provoking novel, The Castle. He read Das Schloss as an undergraduate, in the original German, no less. Not many Japanese students could claim this feat.

On the other hand, the professor desperately wanted this agonizing ordeal to be over, one way or another. He was not good at waiting, especially for sad, tragic events and unpleasant tasks. Visiting a morgue to identify a next-of-kin surely fit into both categories. Plus he detested unnecessary bureaucratic red-tape, whether it was at his stodgy university or here in this hi-tech hospital. Officiousness always wasted resources, including the precious time of all concerned.

After what seemed to the professor an inordinately long time, a tall thin doctor, euphemistically called a houseman in Britain but an intern in the U.S., showed up to escort him to the morgue like a modern-day Hermes or guide of souls. At a distance Prof. Hayakawa reckoned this emaciated chap in a long ill-fitting lab coat might be a tad younger than his son Ichino. The low-ranking physician greeted the grieving relative with a slightly deferential bow, bestowed without enthusiasm. To the professor’s eye the man seemed a burned-out anemic. The phrase, physician heal thyself, came to mind.

Ignoring the elevator to conserve energy for others, the two men padded down the white tiled staircase to the dimly-lit basement. It appeared a veritable underworld worthy of the god Hades and his demonic entourage. Dr. Hayakawa noticed that this dark, mysterious space seemed a warren with numerous corridors and hallways, as well as a multitude of closed doors, all painted in the identical somber dark gray color. He wondered how many experimental vivisection laboratories might be located behind these wide, oversized sliding doors.

Prof. Hayakawa was not in favor of performing operations on live and conscious animals for the purposes of scientific research. He felt uncomfortable about using sentient beings for experimentation so that researchers could utilize their hefty grants to allow well-heeled human beings to exist a few more months in perpetual pain and torment, to say nothing about the high medical expenses demanded of indigent relatives just to keep one of their invalids alive temporarily. Many living-dead begged to be released, instead of being kept alive by artificial means, of the prohibitively pricey kind.

His pragmatic opinions were interrupted when the two men finally approached one chamber. Hayakawa found it curious that no sign indicated that this was the morgue. The slim houseman opened the sliding gray metal door. It seemed too heavy for his slight frame.

The inner chamber felt extremely cold, reminiscent of an arctic meat locker attached to a slaughterhouse. However, Dr. Hayakawa squelched this distasteful notion as ill-conceived. That was no way to compare this morgue storing human bodies of people that others cared about, if not loved deeply.

The professor sneezed in spite of himself. At first glance the shiny silver walls with large drawers reminded him of bakery ovens. However, knowing that dozens of corpses were housed in this chamber, he reckoned this analogy was likewise inappropriate and ill-advised.

Then he compared the double-stacked cubicles to pods in capsule hotels. Guests rented tiny compartments stacked on top of each other like these drawers. Sleeping in such an enclosed narrow unit was both inexpensive and claustrophobic.

Dr. Hayakawa detested small confining spaces, even if a glass window or curtain doubled as the entrance to the pod’s crawl space. Since he had been born and raised in his father’s ancestral villa, Hayakawa was accustomed to spreading out. He knew he was a man of space. The professor did not even like his son’s swanky one-bedroom condominium that he purchased as a wedding gift. Ichino and his bride wanted to live close to their respective offices. Personally, Dr. Hayakawa found the condo unit too confining and limited, but it was the best he could afford in that ultra-trendy Roppongi neighborhood.

He could understand why most condo-dwellers were always out and about and hardly at home. Many actually used their condos like a handy hotel room, just a cut above a sleep box set up at international airports for transit travelers in need of a little shuteye between long-haul flights.

Some condos were also comparable to mobile sleep pods in long-distance vans. Dr. Hayakawa had heard about an enterprising firm that launched a series of sleep pod buses commuting from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back, as well as from L.A. and Portland and return. Opportunities utilizing other highways in the Mid-West were being explored for this moving hotel enterprise.

Hayakawa had just read an article about this nighttime service. According to guinea pig passengers whose main rationale to use this kind of pod bus was to save time not money, the top bunk with the emergency exit was the most advantageous because it had more private space. The comfortable pod design was reckoned to be far superior to a hostel. In addition, hospitality services include a social lounge, safe and courteous drivers, gracious attendants and personalized amenities.

This nightly service involves subsidiary enterprises so other businesses flourish. Laundry gets picked up and dropped off. Fuel trucks come to the pod buses to deliver petrol. Outsourced professional cleaners keep toilets spick and span.

Passengers assemble at designated pickup points and a fleet of small tour buses deliver them to the large sleep pod van. No airport hassles!

While Dr. Hayakawa momentarily distracted himself with these random entrepreneurial thoughts, the emaciated doctor located the large metal drawer marked 4–124. He adjusted his cumbersome lab coat to yank out the narrow tray, as the professor watched him mutely, truly wishing he were elsewhere. The high-pitched squeals of grating metal wheels unnerved him. They intensified the dread of what he would see.

Discretely covered by a snow-white sheet, the form of a female corpse lay flat on its back. Hayakawa found it difficult to look at the prone body on the metal gurney. The lifeless cadaver, still wearing blood-stained, ripped and torn street clothes that now resembled filthy rags, was battered and bruised, almost beyond recognition. The deceased might be identified by a favorite birthstone ring, fine gold chain bracelet or brand-name watch.

The professor could hardly gaze on the immobile face similar to a plastic mask of a showroom manikin. Nonetheless, the distraught father marveled how his daughter’s lovely face appeared relatively unscathed, albeit chalky white, as if the girl’s blood had been drained out of it. Irrespective of the physical violence her shredded body suffered, Tomiko’s unblemished young face made her appear as if she were asleep. Yes, a true sleeping beauty.

Questioning with bloodshot eyes framed by dark purplish circles, the weary intern mutely asked for the requisite confirmation. With a silent nod replete with pain, the anguished father identified the mutilated cadaver as his once vibrant daughter. At that moment the professor realized all too clearly that whenever a person loves someone, he/she will suffer from irreparable loss if left behind.

The houseman curtly bobbed his head without a word or a grunt. He replaced the starched sheet over the head and upper torso of the young girl. Nonchalantly he shoved the metal tray back inside the narrow cubicle that had accommodated countless corpses before, and would do so in future, seeing that this was a hospital, dreaded by both patients and their kith and kin who often knew it as: The House of Death.

The pallid intern, who himself seemed to be on the verge of dying from overwork (called karoshi in Japan), loudly slammed the silver door shut. The bang seemed jarringly inappropriate to the bereaved father, considering the graveyard silence of the chamber with multiple, albeit stacked, tombs. Then, for good measure, the young doctor forced the long metal handle down strongly to lock it firmly, as if the cadaver might try to escape from its airless pod.

The two men sauntered up the white tiled steps to the front desk without exchanging any words. The skeletal houseman wearily certified a number of additional forms witnessed by two clerks at the registration counter. They were disinterested in the routine paperwork, but mighty keen on impressing the young physician who seemed oblivious to them.

As quickly as he arrived, the modern-day Hermes faded away to attend to other pressing medical duties. The young doctor had offered no words of condolence or consolation to the bereft father whose cartwheeling heart juddered in pain.

Dizzy and distressed, Dr. Hayakawa needed to lean on the reception counter. He wondered at the intern’s singular lack of a bedside manner. Considering the callous way the self-absorbed houseman treated the hospital’s clerical staff, grieving parent and even the accident victim, how would he relate to living patients and distraught caregivers and relatives? The professor mused on the mechanical manner of dealing with sickness and death without the slightest trace of comity.

Although still in the grips of a vaguely befuddling daze, Prof. Hayakawa’s administrative skills instinctively lurched into action. He realized that funeral arrangements had to be made to transport his daughter’s body to the family villa.

He spoke softly to the least attractive lovelorn clerk and reluctantly agreed to the terms of the tedious process of paying for the storage of the corpse in the chilly morgue for a few hours, but calculated as a full day; the means of transporting the cadaver from the hospital to his ancestral home; etc., etc. The plethora of mundane procedures seemed overwhelming to the grieving father who could hardly attach any significance to the stark reality of his daughter’s untimely death due to texting. Through it all the more comely receptionist monitored her colleague’s procedures and stifled a rising gurgle of a laugh. The middle-aged professor felt this young person’s cryptic, tight-lipped smile mocked him. Her flippant behavior was certainly an inappropriate response to a recently bereft father of a daughter killed in a car accident. He silently wondered, what is wrong with trendy young people these days?

Returning to one of the standardized sea green plastic seats firmly affixed to a long monotonous row of other chairs, Dr. Hayakawa tried to compose himself sufficiently to telephone his wife and son. He knew these calls would not be easy.

Despite retrying multiple times, his spouse’s cellphone remained perpetually unavailable to outside calls. Dr. Hayakawa knew Midori enjoyed gossiping on the phone which had become an extension of her persona. She had innumerable fair-weather friends and acquaintances to exchange unsubstantiated rumors replete with uncorroborated tit-bits of the salacious kind.

As for his son Ichino, his lackadaisical secretary informed that he was attending a meeting and could not be disturbed. Nonetheless the professor could not understand why his only son had no time for his father when he had spared no expense to ensure that his offspring received the highest quality education. Dr. Hayakawa even pulled enumerable strings to land Ichino a very lucrative post for which he was under-qualified.

After being thwarted by innumerable futile attempts to inform both members of his immediate family, Dr. Hayakawa actually felt relieved he could not reach them after all. Instead, he allowed his savvy administrative skills to kick in as he searched the internet, ironically using his own Smartphone to do so. He needed to find a funeral parlor in his immediate neighborhood.

The professor identified a reputable funeral home in Machida-shi, close to his community. In next to no time he once again found himself sitting in yet another immaculately clean and hygienic taxi, heading for the Fujiwara Funeral Parlor located near Naruse Station, about a thirty-minute walk from his spacious compound.

Kimura, the toothsome director of the upscale funereal establishment, encouraged his hesitant new client to reluctantly select the most expensive carved sandalwood coffin and a significant number of decorative wreaths and other funereal paraphernalia to be delivered at the villa early this evening. The grieving father vowed to spare no expense to give his only daughter a grand send-off.

The funeral director recommended a devout encoffiner who could officiate at the wake. After scheduling an appointment by phone, Kimura remarked it was indeed fortunate that Masuda happened to be available tonight to facilitate the Hayakawa household.

Perched on a wooden chair in Komura’s posh office, the professor felt embarrassed when his empty stomach grumbled. He realized he had missed his routine lunch at the usual bento shop near the university. Excusing himself as soon as possible, he left the premises in search of a good meal.

Spying a restaurant a few steps away from the Fujiwara Funeral Parlor, he dropped in for a bite to eat. The tempera and rice set was more than adequate. On the spur of the moment Dr. Hayakawa decided to order food from this tasty eatery to serve expected relatives, close friends and guests who would attend tonight’s wake. Once the catering arrangements had been finalized and paid for in advance, Hayakawa tried for the umpteenth time to contact his gregarious wife by phone to alert her of developments. Again, to no avail.

In desperation the professor called his landline number to reach Miwa, the long-term housekeeper he had inherited along with the ancestral mansion. She not only brought him up, but also doubled as the nanny for both his children.

Dr. Hayakawa briefly explained to the competent retainer what would transpire at twilight and the arrangements that needed to be done immediately. Almost as an afterthought he instructed the resourceful housekeeper to inform his wife since he could never get through to her by phone. His text messages elicited no response.

His preoccupied son likewise never deigned to return any of his urgent messages. The professor wondered if Ichino had a standing agreement with his blasé secretary, basically a glorified telephone operator, to never bother him with personal matters while in the firm’s executive office. Then the father wondered bleakly if his son was even there today or might be out doing something else, completely unrelated to his undeserved legal post. Ichino could never claim to be a self-made man. He was a father-made person.

As a parent Dr. Hayakawa hated to think badly of his first offspring, but in the midst of mounting frustration he was prone to do so. He tried, unsuccessfully, to squelch the impression of Ichino’s perpetually greedy look, like an opportunist seeing a chance to receive something, but giving nothing in return.

Prof. Hayakawa was beginning to feel the same about his traditional university. He often felt overwhelmed by the demands of his over-regimented teaching profession that insisted that he, along with his colleagues, entertain students so they would give them good reviews online. The administrators felt that by social media and word-of-mouth future students would enroll in his and similar courses if he garnered enough buzz.

In this internet age, universities were constantly threatened by the concept of distance-learning. Soon, he knew, almost all of his future students would be studying online and would hardly enter a lecture hall. They would rarely meet their mentors and counselors. Therefore, on a daily basis Dr. Hayakawa had to muster up all his energies to fulfill his rigorous lecturing regime. He, similar to all other lecturers irrespective of having tenure or not, had to pass through the gambit of the anonymous but critical online Lecture Assessment Forms filled out by uncaring students who held the destiny of their professors in their hands. Hayakawa wondered how his undemonstrative son could take his own professional obligations and responsibilities so casually. On a daily basis the professor had to be constantly on his toes. He could never, except for an unusual circumstance such as a death in his immediate family, be an absentee lecturer for even a day.

The professor’s temperament was deeply nostalgic, not especially for the past deeds of his Hayakawa clan, but for the accomplishments of people living during the Heian Period. He tended to feel cynical about the present and, due to developing contemporary events, he was apprehensive about Japan’s future. Overarching it all was his profound melancholy for the world’s imminent decline and decay.

Hayakawa knew he was the proverbial lone wolf, and frequently the odd-man out. This is why he felt disassociated from his life’s work at the university and estranged from his immediate family. He also felt useless in the contemporary society in which he was born. The professor realized he was in the minority of those who considered that Japan overreacted to losing the Second World War. The occupied government willingly adopted Western goals of greed and profit. To his mind it was as if those in power considered it necessary to forget about Japan’s historical past. Then he recalled the maxim: A person with no memory is a person with no foresight. He sensed that this saying could be applied to Japan after the war.

Thwarted by so many adverse events today, Prof. Hayakawa felt he could not return home immediately to confront his horse-faced wife. Instead of scurrying back to his villa as he might have done twenty-some years ago when newly married to a homely daughter of one of his father’s affluent business associates, today he opted to enter a nearby public bathhouse to relax and unwind in anonymous privacy.

The dim fug of the sauna’s steamy atmosphere due to scolding rising moisture soothed his weary physique. However, mentally and emotionally, he found it impossible to wind down and really become less tense. He was completely drained by the horrific reality of the past few hours.

During the long undisturbed soak he mused on how Japan no longer had any indigenous wolves roaming its scenic landscapes. The last Japanese wolf, thought to have evolved from the gray wolf, was shot in 1905 in Higashiyoshino, Nara Prefecture. Despite the importance and significance of the wolf in Japanese folklore, which portrays the beast as a benign escort of weary travelers, especially walking through forests at night, the Meiji Restoration enforced the national policy to slaughter all wolves. Within one generation the Japanese wolf was extinct even though it had inhabited Japan since the Jomon Period (10,000 to 250 B.C.)

What fools humans can be, he murmured, wagging his head disconsolately.

He found it ironic that present-day Shinto shrines continue to regard the wolf as a messenger of the kami. Prior to the Meiji Restoration, wolves were revered as protectors against misfortune. Farmers perceived them as guarding against wild boar and deer raiding their crops. Certain mountains used to be associated with the wolf. The most famous national shrine to the wolf is at Mitsumine in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, not so far from the Hayakawa ancestral temple where the ashes of Tomiko would be interred.

The fox, on the other hand, suffered no such extinction. There is still a viable fox population in Japan, although the dwindling population is declining due to habitat loss and incurable diseases. The fox has also figured large in Japanese folklore in terms of shape shifters, transformations, duplicities and cunning tricks.

Almost immediately Hayakawa thought about his association with a tailor-made wife of convenience. Originally he had been disinclined to marry anyone at all. He intended to study and rise in his academic field. Only to please his over-anxious parents did he acquiesce to accept an arranged marriage with a completely unknown person. His affluent bride brought along considerable financial assets that seemed like a windfall to his nearly bankrupt father. In addition, his parents wanted the family line to continue.

He did his duty. Midori gave birth to their first child just ten months after the marriage contract was signed and stamped with the family seal (hanko). The couple named their son Ichino so everyone would know he was the first-born. The professor felt doubly fortunate having a son initially, although it turned out the weakling was slightly disfigured and required multiple expensive operations to appear nearly normal at a distance.

Hayakawa’s parents encouraged him to sire a second child as a back-up, but somehow he managed to overlook their desire for additional grandchildren. It was not until several years later when he became drunk with warm saké during a New Year Party he perceived his long-faced wife as somewhat desirable in the shadows. Perhaps she had been possessed by a fox (kitsune) or was a shape shifter? Midori-san was certainly a devious vixen. Many Japanese tales tell of fox-wives bearing children. For example, the mother of the Heian astrologer-magician Abe no Saimei (around 1000) was reputed to be a fox, and allegedly bestowed special magical gifts on her illustrious son. Nine months after Hayakawa’s encounter with his cunning wife, Tomiko was born.

She was perfect in ways that Ichino could never be. Tomiko turned out to be a beautiful infant and child, teenager and young adult. She was lively and personable whereas Ichino remained persistently sullen and stubborn. As the first-born, he always felt entitled. He tended to be opinionated in a cruel, nasty way, quite similar to his vindictive mother. Tomiko on the other hand remained open-minded and tolerant of other people and their eccentric foibles. Ichino invariably did poorly in school and on several levels (academically, emotionally and socially). However, Tomiko excelled in all her subjects and had numerous close and caring friends. She was one of those rare individuals who showed promise in whatever field interested her. Eventually she decided to study fisheries science and planned to become an oceanographer.

How the professor missed her! In the hot and heavy ambiance of the bathhouse he grieved alone, wishing that the reality of Tomiko’s death were untrue. But unfortunately, that was the present Reality; it was no Illusion.

Chapter 2

Family Wake

After a half-hour walk, Dr. Hayakawa reached his villa at dusk. This was actually a tad earlier than he usually arrived home. Truth be known, the professor tried to spend as little time as possible in the company of his spouse, with whom he had hardly anything in common except for their biological offspring, now reduced to one.

Midori shared none of the professor’s scholarly interests and never congratulated him on any of his academic achievements. He found her superficial conversation incredibly trivial and banal. As a matter of fact, Dr. Hayakawa did not particularly like any of his wife’s numerous female friends and acquaintances. They always seemed to be underfoot in his house he preferred to treat as his private castle. He blamed them for inducing his weak-minded spouse to sponsor their latest fads, similar to Howard Johnson’s flavor of the month ice cream. She wasted his hard-earned salary on flighty schemes of zero value or significance.

Prof. Hayakawa unlocked the front door and placed his dusty leather shoes neatly in the foyer (genkan). He was glad that this feature had been perpetuated in his traditional-style villa. It caused a person to pause at the entranceway a few moments, instead of impulsively bursting into the main part of the house. This ante-chamber or ante-room was next to the outer door. A person intending to enter the building carefully turned his/her shoes facing the door so they could be slipped on easily when leaving. An individual must not step in the genkan in socks or with bare feet. This is to avoid soiling the woven tatami mats inside the main rooms. Dr. Hayakawa routinely changed into his customary indoor slippers.

The professor paused to reflect on the purpose of such a vestibule. It was to provide a small area for the removal of footwear before entering the main part of the house. In the case of his villa, the sunken foyer was recessed into the floor, to catch any dust or dirt that might be tracked into the premises inadvertently and thereby soil the interior.

Lost in ruminations, Dr. Hayakawa hardly noticed the stationary form of Midori crouching like a vixen eyeing her prey. She was sequestered on a tatami mat spread out on the floor of the outer living room. As soon as her husband crossed the threshold into the large chamber, he found his habitually talkative wife remarkably taciturn and sullen. He immediately sensed how his spouse bitterly resented the fact that he did not personally inform her of their daughter’s untimely demise.

The distraught mother hissed his given name as if it were something unpleasant, Tomomori… Then she wailed stridently, Why keep it secret from me, your wife? She was our only daughter! Why allow a mere servant to inform me!

Wagging her head disconsolately, Midori literally crawled on the woven tatami mats covering the inner living room. She noiselessly retired to her exclusive private suite, which Dr. Hayakawa was forbidden to enter. He decided to allow his wife to sulk in silence as she grieved in her allegedly blameless rancor.

Prof. Hayakawa considered his spouse unappreciative of all the hard work Miwa had done for her for more than twenty years. Initially as Midori’s able housekeeper, the dutiful retainer managed the household efficiently. Then when his bride of scarcely ten months gave birth to Ichino, Miwa served as the devoted night nurse for the skinny, ailing infant and later as the nanny for the cantankerous boy, growing more troublesome with each passing year. Truth be told, Midori did next to nothing in terms of household chores and/or child rearing.

Then, after a number of years, the perfectly-formed baby girl was born unexpectedly. In addition to continuing to serve as the housekeeper, Miwa adhered to the former routine of acting as night nurse for baby Tomiko and eventual nanny for the bright and intelligent youngster. To say the least, the multitude of tasks comprised a thankless job as far as Miwa was concerned. The usually absent professor tried to make up for the indifference of the so-called mistress of the household. He paid Miwa a little extra supplements for certain services rendered well above and beyond the call of duty. However, due to their many years of association since Miwa had served his parents, the professor never considered her as a mere servant. To him she was a long-term and faithful retainer of his branch of the Hayakawa clan. As a reward for her superior service, Miwa deserved not only respect from all immediate family members, but also a generous stipend during her twilight years.

The professor’s train of thought was abruptly interrupted when business-like Kimura appeared at the villa’s outer gate, the main entrance to the ancestral property with high stone walls reminiscent of a medieval fortress. The black van drove up the sloping driveway and parked close to the main house under the open-air carport. The van seemed packed to capacity with the requisite funereal furniture, including the expensive sandalwood coffin and secondary and tertiary equipment.

The funeral director arrived with his team of anonymous workers dressed in solemn black suits. They methodically arranged the funereal paraphernalia and half a dozen floral wreaths in the spacious outer living room. Several tripod stands accommodated these large wreathes with diagonal banners expressing standardized words of condolence. Numerous tall ceramic vases with freshly picked white gladiolas, as well as potted ferns and dainty shrubs with waxy green leaves were set up strategically around the focal point: the Hayakawa clan’s Buddhist altar (Butsudan) adjacent to the now empty sandalwood coffin.

The retainer Miwa had downloaded an engaging selfie of a smiling Tomiko so that a large blowup photograph could be quickly produced and framed. The picture was installed on a tripod easel specifically designed for this purpose. The professor was duly impressed by the expertise this elderly housekeeper had mastered under the patient tutelage of his young daughter. Somewhat conspiratorially and out of earshot of his wife, Dr. Hayakawa had remarked to Tomiko, Who says that old dogs cannot learn new tricks?

Still, the distraught father fretted, waiting for the imminent delivery of his daughter’s body en route from the morgue.

When he eventually inquired by telephone at Negishi Hospital, the snarky night clerk informed the anxious parent in a breezy way, Not to worry, the subject is on its way. The van’s chauffer just checked in to say he is trapped in gridlock and will be delayed for some time.

Dr. Hayakawa was taken aback by the callous term, subject, the anonymous clerk used to refer to his lovely daughter. He wondered if the hospital’s chauffer and his crew had actually stopped to eat at a restaurant en route.

After hanging up, the professor hardly heard Kimura remark how it seemed fortuitous to invite the encoffiner to begin the ceremony after 20:30 hours as matters were moving along more slowly than anticipated.

By then condolence telephone calls blared every few minutes. Several unctuous relatives claimed to be unavailable to attend tonight’s unexpected and tragic wake. Some promised they would try to participate in tomorrow’s religious ceremony instead. Still others expected to turn up in two-day’s time for the standard Buddhist chanting.

A few relatives inquired about the internment arrangements to place Tomiko’s ashes in the family plot north of Tokyo. They wangled personal invitations to join the cavalcade that would head for Kawagoe-shi in Saitama Prefecture for the final farewell.

By 19:20 hours Dr. Hayakawa finally reached his daughter-in-law by phone. She had just returned home from work, or so she claimed. The professor commissioned Keiko to convey the sad news to her husband, still reportedly at the law firm’s main office. The father-in-law noticed that Keiko did not seem at all shocked that Ichino’s younger sister had been killed suddenly in a car accident. Hayakawa reckoned his daughter-in-law was a calculating cold fish. Over the years, and especially on special holidays, she normally expressed zero emotion during the couple’s infrequent duty visits to the family villa. Ichino and Keiko won no prizes for devoted filial piety. They could care less about their elders, and probably looked forward to the day when both would be gone so they would inherit the villa in order to sell it off at a tidy profit to a greedy developer. No doubt the contractor would have no qualms about bringing in his demolition team to tear the buildings down, including the impressive enclosing walls with large interlocking stones embellished here and there with patches of natural moss.

Prof. Hayakawa felt his head would burst handling so many intrusive telephone calls and other mundane details suddenly heaped on his narrow shoulders. He fully realized that his wife, who lacked the requisite social graces even on so-called good days, would be hopeless with the task of answering the phone and speaking with relatives, friends and acquaintances of the family. Clutching at straws, the professor wondered why the professional funeral director could not manage most of these inane administrative matters.

Within half an hour a handful of teary-eyed relatives, close friends and associates began arriving by dribs and drabs. Dr. Hayakawa realized he needed to excuse himself quickly. He scurried away to his separate suite to change into somber black clothes he normally wore on similar funereal occasions held in honor of other deceased persons, such as the elderly parents of his peers. For the time being he designated Kimura to serve as the official greeter of guests at the entranceway, as his wife was nowhere to be seen.

While Hayakawa preoccupied himself with dressing for the tragic event, the hospital’s morgue van finally arrived at the villa’s outer gate. Eventually the chauffer maneuvered the vehicle to climb up the steep, sloping driveway. He parked the white van alongside the black vehicle of the Fujiwara Funeral Parlor.

A hospital team of two persons clambered out and wheeled the corpse on a metal gurney to the outer foyer leading to the main living room. They dared not enter the wide inner chamber due to the woven tatami mats covering the floor.

Kimura rose to the occasion. He orchestrated the temporary removal of a few of the handmade tatami mats to prevent any blood seeping into the woven straw. His efficient team pragmatically gathered them up and stacked the mats neatly in a back corner, out of sight of the early-bird guests seated on flat cushions according to self-designated hierarchical rank.

Next, the funeral director laid down a large, thick sky-blue plastic sheet on the wide wooden planks of the floor. Then the two hospital orderlies, who smelled of beer and Japanese curry, lifted the diminutive cadaver off the aluminum gurney outside the house and carried it into the outer chamber. Tomiko’s bruised and bloodied corpse now lay on the sturdy plastic sheet awaiting the care and attention of the professional encoffiner (noukanshi). Kimura discretely set up everything behind a folding screen featuring delicate cherry blossoms.

While waiting for the noukanshi to arrive, the retainer Miwa compensated for the awkward pause in the proceedings by offering each guest special refreshments: bitter Green Tea and sweet delicacies. Although several people present knew each other well even if they were unrelated by blood ties, few words were exchanged among them or the bereaved father.

Nonetheless, inadvertent intruders from the outside world broke the heavy silence periodically. Dr. Hayakawa was often forced to get up from his flat embroidered cushion to answer the telephone. Instead of offering sentiments of condolence to those who mourned, these tardy callers invariably proffered excuses why they could not participate in tonight’s ceremony.

Prof. Hayakawa found these jarring telephone calls annoying to the point of being pesky. He had half a mind to leave the landline receiver off the hook, as well as mute his Smartphone. Other guests attending the wake habitually left their mobiles on, so the solemn chamber experienced a steady hubbub of distant greetings to those awaiting the imminent encoffining ritual. Owing to hard-of-hearing visitors who had turned up the volume of their cellphones, excuses bandied by those who had just heard the tragic news but were indisposed to attend tonight, were audible to others sitting stoically and sipping Green Tea in the inner living room.

Masuda, the designated noukanshi for the encoffining ceremony, and his younger assistant showed up a bit later than expected due to being unfamiliar with the labyrinthine neighborhood, compounded by heavy accumulated rush-hour traffic that exponentially impeded their arrival. After they claimed having had difficulty finding a parking space on the community’s narrow streets, the professor suggested that Masuda return to his precariously parked car and drive it into the villa’s spacious driveway. The morgue’s van had departed by then and Masuda could utilize that available space.

While waiting for the encoffiner’s imminent return to the villa, his able assistant made various preparations for the upcoming ritual. Dr. Hayakawa mused that Masada’s unexpected tardiness was rather a good thing. It allowed for the arrival of additional relatives, neighbors and other guests to be properly seated on flat cushions placed on the tatami-covered floor. The steady stream of new visitors likewise preoccupied Miwa who offered the latecomers choice refreshments.

All these guests had come to witness the special ritual of washing Tomiko’s body and placing it in the sandalwood coffin. As if performing on stage, the encoffiner bowed deeply to the mourners. Then Masuda introduced himself in a low, deferential voice. He briefly explained a few pertinent points of the traditional ceremony and some of the procedures he would enact. Masuda knew that most of the visitors might not have witnessed this special ritual before. Therefore, the noukanshi felt it necessary to provide a brief explanation of the various steps that would follow.

The encoffiner began the dignified ceremony by offering incense at the Hayakawa family altar. Then his assistant gave him pure, clear water in a special cup to prepare the deceased’s body for her peaceful transition. Masuda mentioned that due to the tragic nature of this particular death, the initial part of the ceremony would be done behind the discrete screen. Only the parents of the deceased would witness this private portion of the ritual.

Behind the paneled screen, the encoffiner bowed to the deceased before he set about removing the bloodstained clothes under a large white sheet. While the body was covered with this white fabric, he carefully wiped her battered form with a dampened cloth dipped into an aromatic solution. Then he expertly clad the body in a simple bathrobe that had initially rested over the wide white sheet. As if by magic, the noukanshi managed to remove the bloodstained clothing below in order to robe the corpse in a better, unsoiled garment. Then Masuda tidied up Tomiko’s hair slightly and made sure he had all the paraphernalia he needed at hand.

When the deceased was presentable to the guests, Kimura silently folded back the screen’s accordion panels for the public viewing. Masuda bowed again to the mourning the relatives, neighbors and other guests. With the help of his attentive male assistant dressed in a snow-white shirt and billowing black trousers reminiscent of attendants at a Shinto shrine, the noukanshi set to work, bowing deeply to the deceased before he executed each dignified procedure.

Once again he went through the motions of bathing the limp body already clean of splattered blood. Masuda used a dampened aromatic cloth to ensure that the deceased was treated with loving respect.

As he had done in private behind the screen, the noukanshi deftly removed the simple bathrobe underneath the wide white sheet and discretely clad Tomiko’s body in the silk kimono that had rested on top. To the amazement of the mourners who seemed mesmerized by the ritualized funereal procedures, Masuda skillfully slipped off the bathrobe and exchanged it for Tomiko’s special kimono with a cherry blossom design.

Kimura had quietly set up the screen like a theatrical backdrop behind the encoffiner and his assistant. Dr. Hayakawa noticed that the design on the kimono nearly matched the artistic painting of cherry blossoms on the folding screen. He observed how the design on the accordion panels complemented the pattern of his daughter’s silk kimono.

The brightly colored kimono was the kind a young girl might wear walking casually on the street, but not for a grand occasion like a wedding reception or New Year’s Party. The professor appreciated the delicate pattern of resplendent cherry blossoms on the expensive fabric. Although the noukanshi had never personally met his only daughter, Dr. Hayakawa sensed that Masuda, with Miwa’s help, had astutely selected an appropriate kimono for her.

The father observed the reverent and devotional attitude of the encoffiner attending to his daughter’s person throughout the ritual. He appreciated Komura’s high recommendation of Masuda and was grateful that this young man happened to be available tonight to perform this exquisite service for the Hayakawa clan.

After dressing the deceased in the lovely garment, for some moments Masuda studied the enlarged photograph of Tomiko’s selfie set up on a nearby tripod. Then he gestured to his assistant to hand him a tray of cosmetics.

With extreme delicacy and finesse he laid down a basic foundation to hide minor scratches and bruises incurred on the face during the fatal accident. Then he added specific colors to the skin that seemed to revive the tone of the young girl’s complexion. She no longer looked chalky pale, as if all the blood had been drained out of her. Suddenly she appeared healthy, despite being in the grips of the Deep Sleep.

The weary father witnessed how the unhurried encoffiner did everything with careful precision, studied calmness and gentle affection. The bereft parent was impressed by how the noukanshi was sending his beloved daughter on her way in style.

Once the basic cosmetic enhancement was accomplished, Masuda attended to Tomiko’s lustrous black hair, arranging and combing it like a skilled beautician so she appeared at her best. In fact, the distraught father could not remember ever seeing his daughter look this well before.

The relatives, neighbors and other guests sat quietly and remained still and deferential throughout the calm and dignified ritual. Most had had the foresight to turn off their pesky mobile phones. The guests watched each solemn movement of the encoffiner’s actions as if under a hypnotic spell. The shock of the violent death did not seem to fully register with most of those participating in tonight’s wake.

Only the bereaved mother wept profusely and loudly for her lost daughter. Her husband found it uncharacteristic of her. A few of her friends and close associates clucked around her like chicks surrounding a hen. Perhaps they intended to offer succor and moral support. However, Dr. Hayakawa noticed that most of their eyes remained only slightly moist. Few cheeks glistened with salty tears in the spacious living room suddenly transformed by the stark reality of death.

Even the professor, whose heart felt as if it had been shattered into a million pieces, did not weep physically. His tears were shed on the inside. This was partly due to the unspoken social dictum abhorring any display of unseemly emotions in public. In fact, Dr. Hayakawa felt numb and immobile, practically unable to move off his flat cushion.

He had the uncanny feeling that the encoffiner was a skillful mime performing a special pantomime on a theatrical stage, similar to an emotive Butoh dancer. Hayakawa had to pinch himself to realize he was actually witnessing this encoffining ritual, as he had done at countless other wakes of colleagues, friends and acquaintances, as well as distant relatives.

Unfortunately, the platform for the encoffiner’s expert skills was now taking place in the Hayakawa ancestral villa. The subject of Masada’s expertise was an extremely close blood relation to the professor. This inconceivable reality hovered like a dull notion haunting the bereft father throughout the ritualized procedure.

The more he thought about it, the more unjust it seemed that the body of his dear daughter was undergoing this ritual when she had just turned twenty. In the normal course of