“What is this?” the daimyo demanded. “Why have you shaved your head? Who is this woman with you?”
But neither Sei nor the older woman spoke.
The daimyo raged, “What is this insolence? I command you to speak!”
Still, Sei and the older woman remained silent.
“What is your answer? Will you be my wife, and save your father’s life? Or shall I kill him because of your selfishness? Answer my question—yes or no, will you marry me?”
And still, neither Sei nor the older woman responded.
The daimyo spat on the ground. “Execute the old man!” he commanded. But Sei raised her hand to stop the two soldiers who stepped forward to take her father. She approached the daimyo and held out a sheet.
He gestured to one of the others in the court to take the note, as if it were beneath him to handle it personally, and growled, “Read it aloud, so that everyone can hear the words of this most disrespectful girl!”
The courtier glanced over the note and cleared his throat. He did not want to read what it said. But he had no choice:
One week ago, you asked me to be your wife. The word yes would seal our engagement, and the word no would ensure my father’s death. I will speak no words, for I am now mugon no gyo no ama-san.
The final words got caught in the courtier’s throat. He knew how this would displease the lord, as mugon no gyo meant “the discipline of not talking” and ama-san meant “nun.”
The courtier cleared his throat again and continued to read:
I have taken vows of silence and poverty, and I have shaved my head to show my dedication. I have moved to the temple on the highest mountain of the region. It is here that we feel closest to Buddha. I cannot marry you because I am already wed to the Universe. I cannot speak the answer to your question, because my vows will not allow it. Therefore, with no answer, you must release my father and I will return to the mountain temple to spend my life in devotion.
The daimyo was stunned. Though powerful, he knew better than to contradict the Great Buddha. He thought for a few moments and then made his response.
“I must commend you for your commitment,” he said. “I would not think to stop you from returning to the temple. Please do so.”
Sei bowed her head to hide the smile that might betray her sense of victory.
“But before I let you go,” the daimyo continued, “I require that you confirm, yet again, your promise of eternal silence.”
Sei bowed once more to indicate that she did. “Good,” continued the daimyo, “for if you ever speak again, I promise you this: your father’s life will be forfeit, and you will become my wife. And if your farm boy ever visits you at the temple, I will kill both him and your father and make you my wife. Is this clear?”
The daimyo let the proclamation sink in for a moment. “Do I have your word, your Holy Promise, that you shall never speak, nor ever see your farm boy, again?”
Sei stood silent for a moment, then nodded. The daimyo declared, “I am satisfied.”
On her way out of the castle, Sei saw Heisaku hidden in the wooden rafters. How much he loved her, to risk such a foolhardy gesture. Heisaku looked down with the saddest of eyes, for now he truly understood the gravity of the situation. Sei looked up at him and silently mouthed the phrase Aishiteru, “I love you.” Her glassblower’s breath carried these words to the farm boy’s ears, and it was just as Sei had promised: if he listened very hard, he could hear her whispers upon the wind.
Yakichi and Sei were taken by armed escort to the mountain temple. Her father said goodbye, but Sei, of course, could say nothing. She cried silent tears and Yakichi promised to send her a gift as soon as he could. And then he was gone.
Soon the present arrived: a full set of glassblowing tools. The other ama-san were happy to allow her this luxury, as they were deeply devoted to beauty and saw Sei’s art as yet another way to serve Buddha. Besides, the objects would provide a source of income to help meet their modest needs. Even nuns know that while poverty is a virtue, it is terribly inconvenient.
Sei was allowed to convert an empty room of the temple, and every day she worked to create all manner of objects, from dinnerware to artwork. The days became weeks and the weeks became months. Her work grew increasingly beautiful, as she perfected her techniques. And all the while, she was slowly crafting a statue in the likeness of Heisaku.
Sei would work on the statue each time she felt the need to speak, as a way to articulate her love. This meant that she worked on it daily. She created it lovingly, one minuscule section at a time. It began with the ball of his right foot. It expanded to the heel. Then, the toes. With each addition—ankle, lower shin, upper shin, knee—she would whisper while blowing the section. Aishiteru. The word was captured in the glass bubble. Aishiteru. “I love you.”
Miles away, Heisaku would feel the words in his ears. They would travel his spine and into his heart. He’d stop his plow and turn his eyes towards the distant mountain. And so it continued for years. Each time Sei felt the need to speak her love, she would blow a section of the statue, encasing her whispered breath in Heisaku’s hipbone, his finger, his shoulder, his ear…Aishiteru, aishiteru, aishiteru.
When the statue of the farm boy was completed, her love was not. So she started to create surroundings for him, beginning with a field of glass lilies in which he could stand. Later, when the lilies were completed, she would have to find something else. Perhaps, she thought, I will make a tree for my beloved to stand under…. Creating the leaves alone would provide enough work to make my life bearable.
And so her life went until one morning, like any other, when Sei was cleaning herself in the mountain stream. The cold water felt good on her skin but as she washed out her hair, she felt a sharp quick pain in her neck. Before she could even react, her arms and legs began to stiffen.
Sei had been bitten by insects many times, but this was the first time she had been stung by this particular species of wasp and, as fate would have it, she suffered a severe allergic reaction. Her throat tightened, her body would not respond, and she became unable to move. Her paralyzed body was washed down the stream until it became caught upon a rock. For two hours she lay there, as the intense cold of the stream seeped into every corner of her flesh.
Eventually, another ama-san found Sei and dragged her out of the water. Sei’s eyes were unresponsive and the cold water had dropped her pulse so low as to be undetectable. More ama-san were called but none could find any sign of life and, despite their vows of silence, a chorus of tears broke the still mountain air that morning.
Sei’s paralysis was total, but she could see everything, right up until the moment the nuns respectfully closed her eyelids, believing her to be dead. Even when she had warmed slightly, the venom still immobilized her. For three days, the ama-san prayed silently over her. Yakichi was alerted and came to bury the daughter who had sacrificed her life so that he might live.
The daimyo also came, to ensure that this was no hoax. He had heard that Sei was to be buried, which made him suspicious as it was a well-known fact that Buddhists were cremated so the flames would purify the soul. If flesh remained, the soul would still long for its existence on Earth and feel uneasy in Heaven. However it was Sei’s own written request that she be buried, because she wanted to exist forever as a part of the earth that Heisaku would continue to till.
Yakichi had brought Heisaku with him, but introduced him as a new glassblowing apprentice. Fear of the daimyo made this lie necessary. Who knew what he might do if he realized that this was the youth who had bested him for Sei’s affections?
The daimyo was the one who shut the lid to the coffin after ensuring that Sei was truly inside. Unable to move, Sei lay there listening to his horrible voice, “Yes, I am satisfied. She really is dead.” Sei was thankful that her eyelids had been drawn shut, for how awful it would have been if her last sight had been this loathsome man’s face.
Sei heard the sound of the stretching ropes as her co
ffin was lowered into the ground and her body given to the earth. Yakichi threw the first shovelful of dirt into the grave and Heisaku threw the next. All the while, Sei listened as the dirt thudded against the lid of her coffin.
And then there was a miracle. She felt the poison in her veins wear thin and her body begin to loosen. She was able to open her eyes but saw only darkness. She could wiggle her fingers and toes but was not yet recovered enough to lift her arms or legs, so she could not bang on the lid. But she knew that if she yelled, those above would be able to hear her. She could feel the ability creeping back into her throat, and felt elation that she would not die after all. All she had to do was yell….
Then Sei remembered her promise. She would become the wife of the daimyo if she spoke even a word to save herself. Her father would be executed, and Heisaku as well. The daimyo was right there with them, so there could be no denying that she had broken her word. There could be no denying that Heisaku had visited the temple.
And so, Sei shut her mouth and allowed herself to be buried alive. She listened to the dirt being thrown into her grave, with the sound becoming more muffled as every shovelful piled up above her. When the sound stopped altogether, she knew that the hole had been filled and that she was sealed into the earth.
Above the ground, Yakichi and Heisaku cried at the unfairness of Sei’s life. She had given up so much to protect the ones she loved, and this was her reward. As for the daimyo, he cared nothing about the woman who had been buried before him; he was simply satisfied to know that she had not tricked him once again.
As he’d never been to the temple before and it was unlikely he would ever return, the daimyo decided to explore the grounds before returning to his castle. The ama-san tried to prompt him along a path that would keep him away from Sei’s workshop but they were unsuccessful. When he pushed his way into the shop, he was astonished to see the glass likeness of Yakichi’s new “apprentice” standing there in a half-finished field of lilies. The daimyo was no fool: he immediately understood that this was a statue of the farm boy whom Sei had loved so well, and thus he also knew that the boy pretending to be the apprentice was Sei’s great love.
Light poured in through the temple windows and lit the statue. The very beauty of it, the care and detail, mocked the daimyo. He picked up a wooden rod that lay upon the workbench and swore that he would destroy the statue first, and then destroy the real boy. The daimyo lunged forward, swinging the rod like a scythe to cut through the glass lilies that surrounded the statue. The swipe was mighty, and broke through dozens in a single stroke.
There was an enormous blast as glass petals and stems erupted everywhere, riding a massive wave of sound. All the whispers of love that Sei had encased in her lilies came rushing forth simultaneously. Their force was so great that the glass shards traveled outward as if on the wind of a hurricane. They cut the daimyo completely, disfiguring him beyond recognition. The sound was so thunderous that he was deafened and all his hair turned instantly white.
The noise exited the workshop and spread out across the sky over Japan. People in every corner of the country could hear it, and later all agreed that it was the most beautiful thing they’d ever heard. It sounded like pure love.
The daimyo lived, but as a hobbled little half-man, scarred and beaten. His own anger and jealousy had done him in. He no longer had the spirit for intimidation and never again attempted to harm Heisaku or Yakichi.
Heisaku and Yakichi, for their part, loaded the glass statue into a cart and took it back to their village. Heisaku moved into the old man’s house as the son he never had, and they grew to be great friends. After all, they were bound by the love of the woman that they had both lost.
For the rest of their years, the glass statue sat in the middle of their house. It made Heisaku feel somewhat awkward to see his likeness every day, but it served a great purpose. When their grief for Sei’s loss became overpowering, Heisaku or Yakichi would break off a small section of the statue—a fingertip, a lock of hair, the petal of a remaining lily.
Aishiteru, aishiteru, aishiteru. From each broken pocket of glass, Sei’s voice would whisper out to ease their sorrow.
XVIII.
Even though she obviously knew the answer, Marianne Engel made a great show of asking me what day it was.
“Good Friday,” I answered.
“Follow me.” We climbed into her car and it was not a half-hour before I realized exactly where we were headed: to the hills where I’d crashed. When we arrived, there was nothing to indicate that the accident had ever occurred. The trees no longer looked as if they housed a dark troop of mercenaries sent to destroy me. The wooden posts had been replaced, restrung with new metal cable, and were now weathered enough to be indistinguishable from the rest. There were no tire tracks and no upturned dirt; it was just another curve. When I asked how she knew the exact site, Marianne Engel just smiled and let Bougatsa out of the backseat. He jumped around excitedly, and she had to scold him when he got dangerously close to the road’s edge.
She pulled a small leather bag from the car trunk and took me by the hand to the boundary between road and cliff. Here I saw the first indication that my accident had, indeed, happened. There was a still-scorched area at the base of the gully, a small black circle not unlike the period you’ll find at the end of this sentence, right beside the creek that had saved my life.
Motorists whizzed by, no doubt wondering what we were looking at. “Let’s go down,” she said, leading me past the new wooden posts. Bougatsa ran ahead of us, happily finding a path to the bottom that we could follow, and off to one side I saw a broken wedge of red plastic, a turn signal cover that had been ripped from a car. My car. My stomach tightened.
As we climbed down, there were dozens of rocky slots into which I could wedge my orthopedic shoes, but it was difficult to keep my balance. I tried to command my legs to react the way they would have before the accident, but it was not possible: my rebuilt knee was too feeble. When I told Marianne Engel I couldn’t make it down, she refused to accept that. She placed herself directly in front of me, her legs wedged against the slope, so that I could place my hands on her back. This provided enough resistance that I could make it to the bottom, and not claim otherwise.
When we reached the scorched area, I noticed a few small tufts of grass within it, just starting to grow. Someday this area will be green and healthy again, I thought.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just never expected to come back, that’s all.”
“It is good to return to the locations of one’s sufferings.”
“You’re wrong.” I could remember it all: the eruption of glass; the steering column as it flew past me; the hiss of the engine settling; the tires spinning to a stop; the flash of blue flame across the car roof; the way the flames looked as they jumped into existence; the smell of my hair burning; and my flesh starting to bubble and pop. I could remember everything that changed me from a man into what I had become.
“It doesn’t matter if you agree. One cannot become whole by ignoring one’s misfortunes.” Marianne Engel unfastened her bag, pulled out an iron candlestick that she claimed had been made by Francesco, and crammed a candle into its open mouth. She handed me a pack of matches and asked me to light it. “But it is also important to celebrate this year that you have lived.”
I pointed out that it was not actually the one-year anniversary: while it was true that my accident had occurred on Good Friday, obviously that holiday fell on a different date each year.
“You should not regard time in such literal terms,” Marianne Engel said with a kiss to my plexiglass face. “What does a single day matter in the vastness of eternity?”
“I thought every day mattered,” I said. “Especially the ones when you almost die.”
It would have sounded more dramatic, I think, if at that exact moment Bougatsa had not jumped into the air beside us to snap wildly at some bug buzzing around his head.
/> “But you didn’t,” Marianne Engel said. “Tell me, was your life good before the accident?”
“Not really.”
“Then beginning again should be a gift to be embraced.”
She believed sincerely that I was starting over, and I suppose I was: but not entirely, and I felt a twinge of shame at what I was doing with the cash I was advancing from the credit card Jack had set up for me.
A few days later, Marianne Engel was out of the fortress, walking Bougatsa, when I decided to proceed with a secret mission. I put a long gray raincoat over my pressure garments and, though I was not supposed to, removed my mask and mouth retractor. I donned a hat and sunglasses, turned up my collar with criminally gloved hands, and looked in the mirror to see the very caricature of a sexual deviant looking back at me. I supposed it was perfect, considering where I was headed.
“The nearest porno shop.” My voice, revving like a rusted motor, made the taxi driver size me up in the rearview mirror. He seemed to have some second thoughts about taking the invisible man on a field trip, but they were dispelled when I held up my credit card. The driver put the car into motion and we passed the front of St. Romanus, where Father Shanahan was changing the white plastic sign to read: “Was Your Friday As Good As It Could Have Been?”
When we arrived at the Triple-XXX Velvet Palace, I asked the driver to wait. He nodded; he had seen me hobble into the car and knew that I couldn’t run far. Entering the shop was like coming home. There were the familiar smells of latex, leather, and lube. To my right was a collection of anal probes and giant rubber cocks, and to my left was an assortment of French maid and Japanese schoolgirl outfits. Magazines lined the walls, but I was interested in the videos at the back. Scanning the covers, I soon saw one of my own: Doctor Giving Bone, I Presume. (I’ve always considered this one of my more amusing titles.) I laid it down in front of the balding, bespectacled clerk. “Excellent choice,” he said in a completely unenthusiastic voice.