He had been rude to her, and to make up for that, he needed to keep an open mind. Surely Shiho was only trying to help. Anyone would be concerned when a longtime friend suddenly changes the course of his life and distances himself. It was just the toll of recovery, he'd said. He didn't want to be a burden on people. Of course, those were explanations no one would accept, but the more they were said, the more people were forced to accept them. The answers simply weren't going to change. What did it mean, then, that Shiho had been so persistent?
She came back again on a Friday, purchasing a book on stagecraft. A friend of hers had tickets to the theater. She wanted him to come along. He'd been rude to her. He needed to keep an open mind.
He'd promised to come along, but the crowds made him hesitate. There had never been so many people around the bookstore, but the theater was infested with an irregular, shifting mass of people, with all manner of fragrances and odors. He needed his inhaler. It didn't help much.
"Just relax," Shiho said, linking their arms. "You're with me."
Kabuki-za Theater was more than just seats and a stage. Aside from the traditional walkways for actors to make entrances in, around, and behind the audience, there were multiple levels of stands for snacks and souvenirs. Shiho had made him arrive early so they could peruse the vendors before the first act. She liked, in particular, the imitation face masks, made to look like a kabuki actor in makeup. Shinichi tried one himself and marveled at how complete the illusion was in spite of the obvious imperfections. One really could imagine oneself as a different person, unburdened by history.
One might not imagine eating much of anything except a small bag of popcorn at a Western stage play, but at Kabuki-za, the theatergoers enjoyed entire meals at their seats—provided that they were finished by the time the show began. Life was too short, Shinichi imagined, to keep people from enjoying themselves.
The show for the matinee session was The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. Though talking during the show was strictly forbidden, Shinichi and Shiho discussed the play amply during the intermissions. Shiho felt that a blood oath to a dead man was pointless. "At some point, the dead shouldn't hold such sway over the living," she said.
Shinichi didn't think so. The promises we make to others, to our duty, are critical to our credibility in the present. They are the reasons we earn trust, and part of that is the necessity of following through even when our masters are dead and gone. There can be no purer pursuit than to try to uphold the dead's interests. Such goals come with the knowledge that they will never be rewarded.
"You would enjoy that sort of dedication to duty, wouldn't you?" Shiho remarked as they traded for some taiyaki at the vendor stalls. "So, tell me then: do you really think I would believe you'd give up being a detective to sell books?"
At that, Shinichi smiled wryly. "I knew you wouldn't."
Shiho, entirely pleased with herself, broke off a piece of taiyaki and ate it, giving herself a reward. "So? When are you going to tell me what you've been doing?"
Knowing he had to say something was one thing, but knowing how to say it was quite another. Shinichi had no skilled playwright nor a tradition of hundreds of years to help him tell that story. What would his path seem like if portrayed by a troupe of kabuki actors? A tragedy of a stubborn man? A historical chronicle of a wayward detective? A comedy of his follies, as he pursued a case that would have no real solution waiting for him?
Perhaps he would end up like the masterless samurai in the play. With no mission left once they assassinate Lord Kira, the ronin surrender to the authorities. They have no future. The only dignity left to them is the right to take their own lives.
Of course, none of it was real. It was all cloaked in layers of illusion and subterfuge. The stage turned on wheels to transition from scene to scene, and the lights dimmed to help hide the effect. Young men played women. Slightly less young men played older ones. Acts that would've taken years were compressed into a few hours. A 17th-century assassination was transposed into the 13th century to protect the play from retribution, from being dismissed as political commentary. There were dozens of reasons to think none of it was real, and once Shinichi left the theater, he'd go back to his bookstore and face the hard reality that, for him, there would be no poetic ending.
But, for the moment, the food had been good, the performance inspired, and the company enjoyable. That was more than could be said of the past few years, ever since he'd emerged from that burning house.
"I've been looking for someone," Shinichi admitted as they sat down to begin the final act.
"Who?" asked Shiho, but the lights dimmed, and the performers interrupted them. There would be no answer for Shiho until the end of the show, but in the meantime, Shinichi took hold of her hand, letting her know that, in time, the explanation would come.