Poul Anderson - A Shrine for Lost Children.pdf

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POUL ANDERSON
THE SHRINE FOR LOST CHILDREN
Kamakura
SHE HAD SEEN HIM A hundred times or more -- who has not? -- in travel books, on
postcards, as a miniature copy in San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden. But when
he sat before her, seeming to fill half the sky with the mightiness of his
peace, she knew that she had never known him.
Her days of fine weather had turned cold, with a sharp little wind. The Great
Buddha loomed green-bronze against a gray overcast. Maybe that helped the
feeling to well up in her that nothing else mattered, not the low buildings and
autumnal trees around nor the other visitors chattering and photographing nor
even her own life. Or rather, said a bewildered thought, everything mattered
equally, everything was the same, for Amida was in all that was.
From more than six tall man-heights he looked outward and slightly downward, as
he had done for more than seven centuries. The smile of compassion barely
touched the serenity of his face. His robes flowed to hands lying curled on his
lap, the attitude of meditation, as if so bared to the truth that they had no
need to grip it, so strong that they would not ever need to wield their power.
She was not religious-- had not been unless as a small girl, sometimes in the
dark crying out to Jesus. She only stayed for a while that she did not measure,
drawing a kind of silence around herself, gazing, half lost in the presence.
She had seen much beauty thus far, and much charm, and something of a foreign
history and the soul within it. Too much too fast, really; it blurred together
in her mind. A few things stood clearly forth -- the Temple of the Golden
Pavilion mirrored in still water; children taken in bright traditional clothes
to their festival at Sumiyoshi Taisha; the Sengakuji like an island in Tokyo's
sea of cars and high-rises, forever remembering the Forty-Seven Ronin and their
stark story. The image here had immediately joined the foremost.
Are you feeling what I feel, Jenny.* she wondered. Have you been sharing the
journey.* Has it helped you a little bit.*
She did not know whether she feared or hoped for an answer. There had been
nothing since that last day and night before she left home.
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Berkeley
It happened without warning, as it often did. They were taking a coffee break in
the office, and Alice Holt mentioned acquiring a kitten. "I think we'll call her
Jennyanydots."
Here I am. What can we do?
She lurched at the suddenness of it. The Styrofoam cup almost dropped from her
hand. Some of the coffee splashed down onto the floor.
No, Jenny! Not here. Later.
But you called. I heard.
That wasn't me. We can't do anything here. Wait for me.
You're always waiting for me, she thought.
But I'm lonesome.
I know. Frantically: Be good and wait. We'll do things later, I promise. I'll
sing you songs, I'll tell you a wonderful story, but I can't right now where I
am.
This isn't a nice place?
It is, it is. It's just different from home. We both have to wait a while. I'll
call you as soon as I can. I promise. Please.
A hand closed on her arm. "Are you all right?" asked Joe Bowers.
"Yes," she whispered. "Something surprised me, that's all. I'll clean up the
mess."
"No, I think you better sit down," said Alice. "We'll take care of it. Don't
worry, dear."
Their looks followed her as she -- "groped" was the word -- to her desk, fell
into the chair, and drew long slow breaths. Vaguely, she sensed their attention
still upon her. She could well imagine their thoughts. This wasn't the first
time, in the few months of her employment, they'd seen her stare at what seemed
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to them to be nothing. Or else she'd shiver or gasp. Usually it was not when
Jenny stirred, simply when memories broke in on her. But of course they didn't
know.
You aren't happy.
Later, I told you! she yelled.
She felt the puzzled hurt. Blindly, fleeingly, she attacked her work.
Mr. Robertson came by. He stood for a while looking over her shoulder at the
computer screen and down at the papers and printouts. Then he told her to come
into his own office. After closing the door, he said, "I'm afraid we'll have to
let you go." He sounded more grim than regretful. "You've messed up the
accounting again."
She mumbled an apology but didn't ask for another chance. If she'd done that,
the tears would probably have started, and in the past several years she'd tried
hard to school herself out of crying.
"Frankly, I believe you need help," he said, relief gentling his tone.
"Counseling, maybe therapy. Take care of yourself. We'll mail you your pay and
severance with a little extra."
The knowledge came to her: "Thank you, but I won't be at the same address. Could
you direct-deposit it in my bank, please? I'll leave the account number on my
desk. Thank you. Good-bye."
She didn't tell her workmates why she left early. They doubtless guessed.
Outside, the loveliness of Indian summer in the Bay Area, sycamores in the park
across the street showing their first gold to a mild sun, barely touched her
awareness. It was the same when a city bus set her off in the flatlands and she
walked between drab walls to the apartment.
Dave sprawled on the couch amidst general messiness, scribbling one of the poems
he read aloud in coffeehouses. He scowled at the interruption. When she told him
she'd been fired he exclaimed, "How long have you ever kept any job?"
"How long have you?" she replied wearily.
He rose and came to her. His smile flashed as smoothly as his voice flowed.
"Hey, don't get mad, lover. I know you've got problems. I wish you'd tell me
what they are, but anyway, I understand." He took her by the shoulders. His
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hands might as well have been two beanbags. "Let's crack a beer and smoke a
joint and hit the good old futon, okay? Then you won't toss around and moan
tonight, will you?"
At least I fake my responses well, she thought.
"You take this pretty easily, don't you?" she said.
"Well, it's not a disaster, is it? We've got a nice cash stash to see us
through."
She met his eyes. "We?"
His hands dropped. "Uh, you do. Your divorce settlement, I mean. About fifteen
thousand bucks, right?"
"That's what's left. I don't intend to waste any more of it."
He took a step backward. "Huh? What do you mean, waste? We need to eat and pay
the rent, don't we?"
She sighed. "Find yourself a job. Or another woman."
He gaped.
"Don't worry," she said. "You will soon enough."
Why had she ever come to California? And why did she take up with this guy?
Hoping for -- for what, anyway?
Oh, he was handsome, beguiling, not a dullard. She felt a brief, frozen pity for
him as well as that other. "I'11 pack my things and clear out," she told him.
"Just like that?"
No, she thought. The decision had come all at once, but it had been building up
inside her. Maybe throughout her life.
"Where'll you go?" she heard.
To a motel, she supposed, one with a restaurant and a bar close by, though she'd
better not have more than a couple of drinks after forcing down some food. Then
in her room she'd do what she had promised Jenny, reach a truce of sorts with
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herself, and at last be able to sleep.
"Don't worry," she repeated. "And I'm not angry with you, Dave. We've squabbled,
but we've also enjoyed ourselves. Be happy."
She did not think: If only I could be. Endurance was the one defense left to
her.
Kamakura
Maybe she had him to thank for getting her interested in Japan. He talked such a
lot about Zen. But no. Already before she set off, the reading she did and her
conversations with people who were informed had shown how scant his knowledge
was, how close to zero his understanding. Zen was a set of attitudes and
practices; it had scarcely anything to do with what was in this temple.
Nor did she.
She clutched her purse as if it were the peace that was fading out of her and
walked hastily around the courtyard.
A mistake. Seen from behind, Daibutsu was almost featureless, a metal mass. A
booth at the side gave access, for a fee, to the interior. Obviously no
worshipper considered the idea sacrilegious -- it must be like an American's
attitude at the Statue of Liberty-- but she didn't want to enter. What she saw
might well wreck her memory of the mood she had lost.
Better go. She glanced at her watch. Yes. She also meant to see the other
temple, Hase-dera, before returning to her lodgings. According to the guidebook,
at this time of year it closed at five, and the afternoon was wearing on.
Or should she make the visit? That shrine--
Well, she could pass by it and head straight for the famous things. Roy wasn't
here to call her a neurotic coward. Nobody was.
She went from the Great Buddha, never looking back.
Phoenix
Summer laid even an extravagantly well-watered suburb in a furnace. The window
out which she stared seemed an ice-fragile barrier. It would shatter if she
touched it, and her conditioned air spill forth to be devoured by the
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