Rest and Tomorrow

Chapter Four

I pack my bag again today. I've already told the Kaijuras I'll be away in Kyoto "on business." They're too polite to pry.

I can't believe how long it's been. A year. It's been a full year since I tended to her grave. A year since the madness in Tokyo, since losing everything, since setting eyes on him. Yet, sometimes, I forget that there was a life before the inn. Sometimes I wake and my first thought is not of Tomoe-neesan or Battousai, but of leaving my room before the guests do, or whether or not the bath needs to be cleaned. I've never had these thoughts before.

'I'm not forgetting you, Neesan. You understand. I just need something new for a while. Something that doesn't have to do with Jinchu or death. At least for a little while. You understand, don't you? You forgot about it too sometimes, when you were living in the farmlands. It's the same thing.'

Isn't it?

"You're leaving?" Machiko's direct voice arrests my attention. She's standing in the open doorway to my room, straight as the frame itself.

"Only for a few days," I reply, hoping to disappoint.

"To Kyoto?"

"How do you know that?" I demand, momentarily forgetting my aloof manner.

"My father mentioned it. What business do you have there?"

"None of yours." I hope that sounded rude. What right does this sneaking hannya have to ask me personal questions?

"What are you going to Kyoto for?" she persists. "To find buyers for our boarding house before you even own it?"

"To visit my sister's grave!" Why did I say that? She doesn't need to know my plans. But, I notice that she looks sorry for being so intrusive. Good. She should.

"Forgive me," she says, not ashamed, but certainly apologetic. She nods and retreats down the hall with mild dignity.

- - -

I pull the weeds up from the earth around the small stone. Arrogant, scrawny pieces of grass, roots, and dingy flowers stand against me, but their bravery is ignored. Stem and seed, I tear them out and leave them to burn in the sun. 'I'm doing better now, Neesan. I'll be able to make some money soon and leave this place. I don't know where I'll go or how long I'll stay away, but I need to leave for a while. Japan doesn't mean anything to me now. I'm sorry, I suppose I should have more pride in my country, but I don't. Don't be upset, though. I'll come back. There's just no place for me here right now. I don't belong anywhere. But I promise to keep your memory no matter where I go. And I'll come back.'

All of the weeds have been eliminated and I sit back. She loved him, I suppose. I don't know how. Even though I've read it, I don't understand it. Her diary shows her sympathy for him, and that she cared for him willingly, but I still don't know why. The last entry, the one dated the day that she died ...

'I'm trying to make you proud, neesan, but I don't know what you want me to do.'

- - - - -

The old people welcome me back. So do the younger girls, but I imagine they were forced, because neither looks particularly happy to see me. Maybe I should have thought to bring them back something from the city. No. I'm not a benefactor. I thank them all and retire to my room. Machiko was nowhere in sight.

I set down my bag and begin to unpack. First my other set of clothes, then the short sword wrapped in layers of fabric, then money, and finally the diary. I had no reason to take it with me except that I wouldn't leave it far from me. I put it back inside the drawer of the Western desk, put the bag away and unfold my futon. I'm tired. I can't sleep on trains. I take hold of my folded blanket and drag it across my body. The family won't bother me until the next meal, whatever that is, so I can take a few hours of sleep for myself.

- - -

The middle daughter, Masa, wakes me.

"Yukishiro-san?" Her creaky voice travels through the door into my dreams and pulls me out of them.

"What?"

"Dinner is ready, Yukishiro-san," she responds.

"Thank you." I can hear her turn on the wood floor and walk down the stairs. I suppose I have to wake up now. The sky outside my window is nearly dark. I'll leave my bed the way it is then; there's no sense in putting it up at this hour. Pausing before the modest mirror, I straighten out my clothes and then head out of my room to dinner.

I no longer eat in my room. Kaijura-san invited me to start eating with the family in the room annexed to the kitchen, and I thought it would be wise to accept.

Machiko is there, of course. Our daily interactions are becoming sparse verbal sparring matches, but there's no malice behind them. At least, there is none on my part. She probably takes me as a much more serious threat than I take her. She has a personal stake in the boardinghouse, whereas I could really care less.

They've waited for me, so I take my place promptly. As always, Machiko is to my right. She didn't look up when I entered and she's not looking at me now. Perhaps I've won some little victory that I don't even know about. One of her parents probably dropped a bit of my praise in her presence. Maybe they've even begun to finalize plans about the sale of the inn. The meal passes calmy. No one interrogates me about my short trip or tries to engage me in conversation. The girls finish eating and immediately wash their plates. Afterwards, I can hear them head upstairs to remove the used dinner trays from the guest rooms. The old people are taking their time, as always. I finish and take my own plate and cup into the kitchen. No one protests this action anymore. Surprisingly, Machiko is right behind me and blocks my return to the eating area. She stares at me directly, but without her usual cool fire.

She's like a ghost the way she'll stand and stare at me without saying a thing. Although she's hardly less ghostly when she does speak. Her straightforward manner can be creepy when she employs it often enough.

"I want to talk to you."

"Go ahead."

"My parents plan to give you the inn, as you know," she says, speaking quietly. "Their plan is to have you manage it completely while they draw the profits for the next few years. After that time, after working without wages, you'll have 'bought' the business as far as they're concerned."

"And why are you the one who's telling me this?" I turn away and walk through the other exit, but she follows.

"After the place is yours, you plan to sell it. Is that right?"

I'm not sure what kind of trap she's setting me up for, so I'm not sure how to respond. "Why? Would that bother you?"

She exhales shortly. "My father is the son of a poor farmer. His father apprenticed him to a merchant who taught him what he knows about business. Later, my father was able to buy a small, burned house on a plot of land. It became this inn. Every room here my father built. My mother, too, was from a peasant family. She didn't even have a decent article of clothing to her name when she married my father. They lived hungry for want of money, because they spent every spare mon they had on this building."

I walk up the staircase, trying to ignore her, but she doesn't stop.

"As a child, I watched my parents work to draw in the money that we needed to live. Now, finally, after more than twenty years of my parents' sweat and worry, we have this business. I understand that it's not glamorous, but if you could see the burned patch of ground that it was–and for that matter if you could see the impoverished people my parents were–perhaps you'd have some inkling of our struggle."

I stop at the door to my room and wait for her to finish.

"When you sell the inn, my family will have to leave and live in a house that won't be their own. Do you understand this? You'll be taking away what my parents have built over the past twenty years." She pauses for effect. "Will you really do that?"

I don't think Machiko has ever said half so much to me at one time. "Look," I reply, "obviously they don't want to take care of it anymore. Why don't you take it over if you care so much?" I put my hand on the door frame, hoping she'll take the hint and leave me alone.

"Don't act callous. You know they're too old to provide the upkeep this house needs. So they found a young man to inherit it. My father is trying to give you the windfall he never received."

"You didn't answer me," I say, pleased to have caught her verbal sidestep. "Why don't you take the inn if your parents don't want it? Or why don't they wait for your little sisters to inherit it? You can hire some street urchin to clean the roof and do repairs." Judging by her rigid expression, I think I've won this little battle.

"I don't want the house. But you don't seem to understand, or perhaps you don't care, that this is my parents' entire lives. You can't just sell it out from -"

"Why not?" I step away from the shoji and stand squarely in front of her. "Why don't you want the house? You care enough about it. Isn't it you responsibility to take care of your parents? It certainly isn't mine, so don't try to put your duties off on me."

"It should be a duty of your conscience," she says quietly. "You're taking advantage of kind people and turning them out of their home."

"No. You're the daughter. I'm the entrepreneur.

You have your role and I have mine. How can you tell me that I'm wrong to sell it when you don't want it any more than I do?"

"Judge me all you want. You know that you're wrong to do this."

Damn shikome. "Well why are you talking to me? Go tell your parents what a terrible man I am."

"They don't believe it. They like you. You've charmed them, and they're too trusting anyway."

"I don't need to justify my actions to you," I say by way of a somewhat dignified retreat.

"No, you don't. But I won't let you take this inn."

That shouldn't have scared me, but it did. Something about her tone was so understated, but so sincere that I can't help but feel unnerved. "Do what you need to," I say, retreat into my room, and shut the shoji. I have no idea what Machiko intends, if she has a plan at all, but she might be a real challenge.

"Yukishiro-san."

She's still at my door. "What?"

"Why are you still going to sell this house after hearing what I've just told you?"

I slide the door open a few inches. "Because I don't want this house and I do need the money. Look, Machiko-san, I won't sell to just anyone. I'll make sure the new owner allows your parents to stay here, alright?"

"You know things don't work that way. My father took you in and you still don't feel like you owe him anything. Why would another stranger feel more?"

"I'm not trying to hurt them. I'm a businessman, Machiko-san. I do business. You're a daughter, so why don't you stay here and take care of your parents or find a husband who'll do it for you?"

I see her set her jaw. I hadn't meant to strike a chord in her. "Clearly," she says with reserve, "we have an unresolvable conflict of interest." She turns to leave.

"Machiko-san, I'm not trying to rob anyone of their livelihood, least of all your parents." She doesn't turn around and I wonder why I care about her parents or about what she thinks. I close my door again. I have to wonder what she'll do, though. For all I know, she could be the kind of person who would stab me in my sleep.