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© 2008, C. Sanchez-Garcia Reviews For MORTAL ENGINES & THE COLOR OF THE MOON by C. Sanchez-Garcia " . . . well-presented, intelligent and incredibly sexy. . . . Chris raises the difficult subjects of women being commoditized; the contrast between physical attraction and mental stimulation; and a whole host of big topics that give this story a strong sense of being intelligent and insightful as well as being erotic and arousing. . . ." Ashley Lister, Erotica Readers "...C. Garcia-Sanchez' work is arousing and challenging, but not easy. If you're seeking fairly mindless entertainment, sexy stories that go straight to the genitals while bypassing the soul, look elsewhere. If you are willing to dig deeper, to think and to feel and to appreciate the many-leveled complexity of sexual desire, I strongly recommend this book... Emotionally intense and unfailingly provocative... This is the exact opposite of the consumable, forgettable stories currently marketed as "erotica". It deserves (dare I say it) the label of literature..." ~Lisabet Sarai "...C. Garcia-Sanchez's work is arousing and challenging, but not easy. If you're seeking fairly mindless entertainment, sexy stories that go straight to the genitals while bypassing the soul, look elsewhere. If you are willing to dig deeper, to think and to feel and to appreciate the many-leveled complexity of sexual desire, I strongly recommend this book... This is the exact opposite of the consumable, forgettable stories currently marketed as "erotica". It deserves (dare I say it) the label of literature... ~Lisabet Sarai, author of Incognito
and Raw Silk Sample Chapter For MORTAL ENGINES & THE COLOR OF THE MOON by C. Sanchez-Garcia Mortal Engine The young girl’s long, swimmer’s thighs, and the exposure of her tight young nipples peeking out as her top came slowly down only added to his humiliation at retreating to this place. Every man in history eventually thinks the same thing. If only we could marry their bodies instead. Sex is easy. It’s the rest of the baggage it carries that kills your love. He watched the girl and waited for something to come to him. Eventually it did. “Hal?” Inwardly he despaired. He absolutely did not want to be seen here, evidence of how low things had sunk. He confronted the voice behind him and recognized an abandoned friend. “Hey, Arnie.” Arnie, uninvited, sat at the table with him. “Jesus Christ. What’s the deal? You’re here?” “You’re here, too.” “Yeah, but I come here.” “I know.” “Never thought I’d see you here. What’s going on?” “Not much.” “Bullshit.” Arnie studied him a moment. “What’s her name—Nicole? She keeps you on a short leash, man.” He took a corner of the tablecloth and blew his nose on it. “I know.” “So you’re here, in a titty bar?” “Does it look like I’m here?” “No, man,” said Arnie. “It doesn’t. Part of you is here. Where’s the rest?” “Am I in trouble or something?” Hal hesitated to go in this direction, but the second glass of twenty-dollar beer was hitting his blood. “I guess I wanted to sit in the dark and look at girls.” “By yourself.” “It’s okay. You’re here now, I don’t mind. You’re as good company as anybody else.” “Something happen with Nicole?” “Nichele. Her name’s Nichele.” “Nichele. Weird. ‘Nickie’ right?” “Nickie, yeah. She’s gone.” “Aw shit, Hal.” “Anyway. She’s gone.” “What the fuck, Hal? I thought you guys were good.” “She left yesterday. This time, I don’t think she’ll be back.” “Aw shit, Hal.” “It happens.” “What’s the deal with you guys? I mean, you seemed all right.” “Last night. She started in on me, like she does, and I slapped her pretty hard a couple times. I don’t know. She never cared about it before. This time she did.” “Aw shit, Hal.” The waitress came over. Arnie ordered a drink, twenty-dollar minimum, and she brought him a mug of pale beer. They sat in uncomfortable silence watching the dancer squeeze her silky thighs around the chrome pole. “Anyway.” “What’s done is done,” said Arnie. “Yeah.” “Think she’ll divorce your sorry ass, man?” Hal gave him a look and took a sip of beer. “She might. I don’t know what to do.” “You want her to?” “You know,” said Hal, “the funny thing is I might. I mean, it doesn’t bother me that she might, the way it would have a while ago. It’s more peaceful without her. We don’t have any kids. She’ll probably want the house and the land. I’d probably fight her for that.” They fell silent for a while and watched the girl writhing on the chrome-plated pole in the brilliant laser lights. She tried to turn herself upside down, didn’t quite make it, and covered up by pouncing near the edge of the stage. It was near the end of her act and she was giving each man her most intense come-hither look, opening her lips avidly and gesturing with her hands for them to come to her. To touch her and take her. To have her. At the end of the stage bar was a big man in a Chicago Bears T-shirt who would deal with any man who actually tried to do this. Who is she, really? When she’s not doing this, who is she? Some college kid trying to pick up a few bucks for schoolbooks? A single mother maybe, looking at you like you’re the last hard dick on Earth, when she’s really thinking about getting her kids some new clothes for school. “What a piece of ass,” Arnie said. “Yeah.” “Was Nickie good?” “Good how?” “Was she a good fuck? Ninety in the shade?” “Why? You thinking about banging her? Fuck her. Go ahead. Tell her I sent you. I don’t care anymore. Tell you what, she likes it when you go down on her and hum What’s Love Got To Do With It and stick your finger up her ass at the same time. Try that first.” “No, come on. It ain’t like that,” said Arnie. “Just trying to get you to talk. You don’t have to talk. It helps if you talk. If you don’t want to talk about it, hey, fuck you too.” “Look. Don’t get pissed. It’s not you. I feel bad. You want to know? She was probably like anybody else. Most women aren’t that great in bed anyway, they probably all average out the same. If they don’t lie there like a fish, then they’re good, I guess. On a good night, she could be a wild ride when she wanted it. Toward the end, it was all charity sex. When the hospital put her on night shift there wasn’t much of anything. When she was good, she was okay. I’d rather have fucked her than anybody else, but that’s never the problem, is it?” The second beer was gone, rising into his brain now like yeast and he didn’t try to fight it. His revelation had not come to him, and he was still hoping for it from any direction. “Look at her,” Hal said, now hoping to change the subject. “What does she really want?” The dancer was on her knees holding up her breasts to them. Arnie leaned over to her and put a twenty-dollar bill in her G-string, pushing it deep, but not getting any hair. She moved to the other side of the stage. “When did they start shaving their pussies?” he said. “Whose dumb idea was that?” “I think that started in the 1990s.” “Seventy years ago. And they still do it.” “Oh yeah. I don’t like it.” “Me neither. I like a full bush.” “Nickie had a big bush…she shaved it once, but neither of us liked it.” “Think you’ll get over her?” “I’ll be thinking about her a long old time.” Arnie had finished his beer. He waved
the cocktail waitress over. “Beer and a bump,” “Okay,” he said. The waitress went away and brought back their beers with a shot glass of cool bourbon for Arnie on the side. They watched the dancer. “Do you think she’s real?” Arnie said, staring at the girl’s stiff dark nipples as she shook them in a circle. A red laser spot caught the nipples and rotated synchronously with them. “It’s really hard to tell. She looks pretty real. All but the tits.” “The tits look real to me.” “They make pretty good tits these days,” Hal said. “It’s hard to tell about the girls though, unless you try to have a conversation with them.” “Oh conversation, fuck that. I think she’s real, because she dances pretty good. That’s all. That’s the only way to tell. You can program them to fuck, but dancing is more complicated than fucking. I don’t think they can do that yet.” The girl slowly peeled down the string thong panties to her knees, and bent over backwards, arching her back, her nipples pointing into the air like gun barrels. With a deft little prance, the panties flew up and into the dark. “Yeah, see?” Arnie said. “No bush. It ain’t natural.” “I’ve heard they can program some of them to dance, but they’re too expensive,” Hal said, losing all interest in the dancer. “I heard they have them in Japan. Real girls are cheaper anyway when they’re just dancing. Probably cheaper to fuck, too.” “And then there’s the big guy over there.” “Oh yeah, nobody’s going to care if a guy grabs a robot’s tits,” Hal said. “But a girl, yeah, they’ll bust your arm for that.” Hal was halfway through beer number three. “I don’t get that anyway.” His voice was becoming excited. “Why can’t a guy grab a girl’s tits? Look at her.” The dancer had finished her act and was leaving the stage. “If she doesn’t want a guy grabbing her pussy or her tits, or whatever he wants to grab, I mean goddamn, what is she doing here? Right?” He touched Arnie’s arm. “Am I right? Go work for Dunkin’ Donuts or something if you don’t want a guy finger fucking a twenty up your twat. Jesus.” “Got that right.” “Man. If we could just marry their cunts instead.” “Yeah, well. You know you can.” Hal looked at Arnie. Arnie grinned at him. “Aw man,” said Hal. Arnie grinned and tossed down the shot of bourbon defiantly. “Aw, man, you didn’t.” “Sure I did.” “Arnie, Jesus.” “It’s normal, okay? There’s nothing wrong with it.” “You fucked—no way.” “Sure I did. It’s normal. It was great.” “Arnie, you fucked a robot?” Arnie looked irritated. “You make it sound like I stuck my dick in a lawn mower or something. It’s not like that.” “Goddamn, Arnie. That’s just weird.” Arnie leaned in close and gripped Hal’s arm authoritatively. “It’s not weird. It’s like jerking off. It’s normal. It’s what guys do. And you know what? It was great. It was the best ever.” “Yeah, but goddamn.” “It’s better than fucking a woman, Hal. They don’t stir up shit. It’s safe. You don’t get sick and fucking die when your dick rots off or something. You can do anything with her you want, and I mean anything, and you don’t need to buy her dinner or listen to her talk at you about her feelings. I mean what more do you want?” Hal felt the light breaking on him. “Better?” “Oh yeah. You’ll never want to go back.” Hal pulled his arm from Arnie’s grip. A lovebot. He looked into the remaining depths of beer number three and lost himself there. The simplicity of it had the power of a religious revelation. “Tell me about it.” “You see?” Arnie finished his beer and grinned triumphantly. “You do want to know what it was like, right? Well, no shit. It was perfect.” “Perfect how?” “It’s just perfect,” said Arnie. “Because you can do anything. And you don’t have to worry about getting her off, because you know she’s faking it anyway. But they fake it really good. I mean they come like a damn opera singer. Do you know what that’s like? To do anything that just you want to do?” His eyes clouded with missionary zeal. “There was this African pussy I leased for one night. Huge ass. Long taco tits. Right out of your daddy’s National Geographic. Know what I mean? That doesn’t make me a racist or some feminist shit, right?” Hal shrugged. “I guess. So what happened?” “So like she was all set up to say stuff to you with this big accent. And when she got hot, her tits stuck way out and she’d start grabbing at my cock and she’d say stuff in African, like ‘Fuck me, bwana,’ or some shit. They make it like realer than real. What other way you going to get to fuck an African babe, right? And when you slip it in—oh god, it was heaven. I just kept slipping it in over and over. The sweetest ever. She was warm and she was wet. She was Africa, man. I think they use glycerin or some slippery shit. “When she clamped that thing down tight around my cock like a fucking vacuum cleaner, I’m telling you, I just gave it up. I was a virgin again. I was in love. A woman can’t do that for you. Not in a million years. If they ever make an Italian one that can turn into a pizza afterwards, women will be obsolete. Women will be extinct.” “You don’t feel weird telling me this shit?” “Why, you got a girlfriend in the ACLU?” “No.” “We’re friends, Hal. I think it would be good for you.” It had the feel of the revelation he had been waiting for, and the feeling that everything, even Nickie’s walking out on him, had been leading him to this. “Okay. Maybe I’ll check it out, maybe not. Where do you get one?” “Whorehouse,” he said. “Same as any other pussy. See the bar?” Arnie gestured to the wet bar in back of the strip joint. “They got cards over there. It’s legal, like renting a car, that’s all. Just take one.” So he did. * * * * In one way it was like renting a car, and at the same time like arranging a liaison with master courtesan. The bartender, without expression, had reached under the counter and handed him an old-fashioned paper business card. The intimidating card was printed in gold embossed letters that read: Galatea Turing Cybernetic Engines * * * * The card lay next to his Waldo unit for two days, tucked under a ceramic kitten Nickie had bought at a junk shop years ago. Every time he picked up the little hand held Waldo to make a call, or set up a purchase over the Net, he saw the card but could not bring himself to touch it. On the Net, he did several searches on the company name, but couldn’t find anything, except an old news article describing a series of military unit recalls after a friendly fire incident. He began to do searches on lovebots. Most of the articles were from outraged heterosexual women’s groups that felt it was encouraging rogue male behavior and a threat to responsible fatherhood. There were praises from psychologists who claimed that it gave individuals, cursed with deviant brain wiring, a way of harmlessly working out their compulsions without harming anyone human. There were criticisms from religious authorities for almost the same reason, saying that it encouraged such behavior and was a threat to the family. There were even some disturbing sites for applying to rehabilitation therapy groups, for persons sexually addicted to lovebots. People who had lavished and lost their fortunes to them. Yet nowhere did anyone deny that sex with a lovebot was other than “the sweetest ever”. In the early years of their marriage, he had come home from work early one afternoon. He had some bad sushi that gave him diarrhea and he had determined to spend the rest of his day about three running steps from the toilet. Nickie had come home early that afternoon also, which he comprehended from her passionate howls coming from the bedroom. Son of a bitch. He picked up a sharp-ended log from the fireplace. Son of a bitch. I’ll kill them both. As he quietly put his hand over the electric eye on the door, instead of a man’s forceful grunts, or the rhythmic thumping of mattress springs, he heard a steady buzzing. He stayed there a moment, his mouth open, and his cock beginning to swell at the sounds of her animal-in-a-leg-trap cries. The buzzing became muffled and low as though smothered inside something. She squealed and cried out. The sound of her release made him erect. But she never does that with me. She doesn’t come hard like that. He let go of the eye, and the door whisked open. She was naked and frog legged across the tangled bedspread with a Hitachi hand vibrator tucked between her legs. She twisted around to see him standing in the doorway. She grimaced in orgasmic embarrassment and then she saw the log in his hand. Maybe it is better with machines. I wonder why that is. Color of the Moon Once upon a time… The old woman seemed relieved that it was over. She moved as though to stand, but her knees were slow and rebellious. On the wall behind her was a calligraphy painting, backed in faded silk. In bold Kanji characters it read: Shichu ni ikiru o eru. * * * * On the tatami mats, next to the young man, was a large mizu screen of woven rice reeds and embroidered silk. The screen was painted with traditional images of Mount Fuji and a white crane, a symbol of eternity. Hidden behind the screen was a young noble woman who had summoned the young man in the middle of the night to perform. There was no doubt in his mind, even now, that from the moment he had been escorted here, he was in danger of losing his life. Somewhere a samurai guard would be posted discreetly. For the slightest breach of Imperial etiquette, the samurai could strike his head off without warning or regard. Being an impoverished biwa hoshi, summoned in the night to perform the saga of Heikyoku chants, would be no excuse to spare him. There was a shadow on the screen. The woman made a gesture that the old woman was trying to ignore. He pretended not to see, and gently set down the large biwa lute he had been playing and chanting with. He waited in polite silence, hoping he would now be dismissed. From the edge of his eye, he saw the same gesture again, more emphatic, almost violent. She hissed something sharply, but the old woman only arranged her plain gray kimono and looked away. He felt desperate to leave this place, but without the proper courtesies, not to mention a guide, he was effectively a prisoner. The old woman looked at him with silent, maternal pity. There was an insistent poking at his bare foot. He looked down. The edge of a folded fan pressed against his toes, from beneath the bottom of the mizu screen. Feminine fingers, long and slender, with conspicuously sharpened nails, held the fan. He brushed the fingers as he took the offered gift. The alien touch of the woman’s hand startled him. The fingers withdrew and left the fan in his hand. He slipped it into his monastic robe and bowed deeply to the old woman. Addressing the room, he said, “Thank you, Okata-sama.” “You may leave,” said the old woman. She gestured to the door without rising. The young monk took the bachi, the large tortoise shell plectrum, and laced it through the strings of the biwa. Cradling it like his child, he stood and bowed again, and went to the door. The old woman nodded to him. As he slid the door aside, he heard angry whispers. “…don’t you ever…” * * * * He stepped outside into the cool, mountain air. It would be close to sunrise soon and the clear sky was full of stars and a gibbous moon. He slid the door shut and waited on the veranda in the light of a paper lantern, hanging from a hook. He was a pilgrim to this part of Japan and knew nothing of the local countryside. Where was the samurai officer who had brought him here? He would have to wait, either for a guide or for the sunrise. It would be useless and dangerous to thrash around in the forest in the dark. He took the fan from his robe and opened it. It was fine and very old. An elegant and personal gift. A white crane, this time in flight, next to a juniper tree was painted on the blades. In fresh ink beneath the crane was written: In heaven flies one He recognized this as a court poem in the old waka style. No one writes these anymore. Five syllables, then seven. A woman’s poem. She wants me to finish it for her. She is curious about me. It shows she means to summon me again and I must not refuse. As he ran his fingers over it, he remembered the strange feeling of touching her hand. He held it to his nose and inhaled the fabric. He coughed and was suddenly overwhelmed with feelings of loss, loneliness and regret. Quickly folding the fan, he put it away. If he smelled it again, he knew he would weep for her. You are proud. You’ve never been called to play for a person of such high rank. You have never dreamed of it. Where is your humility? What is stirring inside you after being in the presence of a woman—a noble woman—who so clearly admires what you do? Lust, also? Where are you going? What have you lived for, if playing for someone like this can undo you so completely? Attachment causes suffering. You are attached. Suffer then. We think we know ourselves, but we know nothing. I am not pure. I am not wise. I am a rotten fish stinking on the beach. My time has not come. Beneath the damp boards of the veranda, a cricket sang. He listened and waited, comforted by the friendly sound of a fellow musician. Could a cricket have Buddha nature? The time is passing! Every moment I stand here with my thoughts, I steep in hot pride and boiling lust like leaves of tea. “Shigata ga nai…” he sighed. It can’t be helped… He heard the door open behind him and the old woman in gray was there. Her hair covered with a black veil. She slid the door shut, took the lantern from the hook and placed it on a pole. The biwa hoshi slipped on his straw zori sandals, and she slipped on her elegant zoris of tightly woven reed and wood. She went down the steps with surprising energy and he followed after. When they were well into the forest, she stopped suddenly, lowered the lantern and looked over her shoulder. Behind them, a pale blue ball of light wove in and out of the trees. “Do you understand whom you were performing for tonight?” she said. He bowed deferentially from the waist. “Though poorly qualified, this person was told he has had the privilege of performing for a member of the Imperial family.” “Do you know which Imperial family?” This was confusing. How many Imperial families are there? “Forgive me for being so ignorant. I don’t understand your question.” He clasped his hands in front of him in an inoffensive gassho gesture. “You have no idea,” she said. “If you are ordered to return, be very careful. For your mother’s sake. No—your own sake, and your sanity’s sake, be careful. Never speak directly to that woman.” “The woman—” “Never! That’s all you need to know.” She looked behind again and saw the pale fire coming in their direction. She held the lantern high and squinted nervously into the dark ahead. “Come.” He followed her to the main road. In the distance to the west, he saw the outer lights of the small inn from which the samurai escort in black armor had rudely awakened him in the middle of the night, and ordered him out to perform. The eastern sky was turning from black to indigo and the sun would be rising soon. He turned to thank the old woman for bringing him to the road, but she was gone. * * * * Shoji awoke with the sun in his eyes. He was on his bedroll and he was tired. The intense dreams had kept him from resting well. His biwa was where he had put it last night, in the corner near the door of the veranda, and the bachi was still laced in the strings. Then there was no old fan. No woman or samurai to fear. No poem to complete. Beyond the walls of his tiny room in the inn, there were noises of people and some kind of excitement. He got to his feet, rolled up his blanket, and put it next to the biwa. He sat down for a moment to try to remember as much of the dream as he could. The lines of the waka poem were already fading. * * * * He had been standing alone in the dark on the veranda of the inn. A cricket had begun to sing when the samurai officer appeared from the forest. Shoji had been told Nobonaga’s army had passed through here a month ago, taken what they needed and moved on. But this samurai was not a masterless ronin. He had come in the carefully maintained armor of a very high officer. Black armor that gleamed in the moonlight. An enormous winged and horned helmet hid his face in shadows, and his cuirass was emblazoned with a golden butterfly crest, the family mondokoro emblem of the Taira clan. He was armed with the full daisho of both the long katana and short wakizashi swords and was not to be argued with. He had brought him through the forest to a clearing, and a sparsely furnished house. A severe looking old woman in a gray kimono had met them and escorted Shoji inside. His patron seemed to be a young woman behind a mizu screen, a social protocol required when a female of the Imperial family had to deal privately with someone as lowborn as a biwa hoshi. She had dispatched the samurai to summon him here to hear the Heikyoku chants, the stories of the Heike, which he had performed for them through the night. And she had given him a fan, soaked with the scent of memories, and the beginning of a waka poem. That is all of the dream I can remember.
It’s too bad I can’t keep the gifts I get in dreams. But
what did she write? A poem given in a dream is a gift from Kwannon herself. It would be disrespectful not to finish it. I’ll add it to my chants. If I honor the dream, maybe there will be more. He was hungry. The food he carried when he arrived at the inn had run out and he might have to go out with his begging bowl soon. Perhaps the innkeeper would have something leftover for him. There was a bucket of water near the biwa, a bamboo dipper and a small towel. He kneeled down and took the dipper to get a drink. In the dark water, the morning sun appeared like the moon riding clouds in a midnight sky. He saw a face in the water, but not his. Instead of the shaved head, and the intense eyes of a young man living under Buddhist vows of celibacy and poverty, was the face of a young woman. It was a thin and passionate face, framed with luxurious hair, with painfully wishful eyes. She looked into his eyes and smiled so clearly he saw that one of her teeth was slightly crooked. The dipper dropped from his numb fingers and fell into the bucket. The image disappeared beneath the ripples. His heart was pounding. He fell against the wall, knocking over the biwa. It hit the floor, ringing like a wooden gong, filling the room with its sound. The hum of the strings faded and there was only the sound of his breathing. After a moment, he reached for the biwa, straightened it, and the bachi fell to the mat from the strings. He laced the bachi back into the strings, and picked up the dipper again. Without looking into the bucket, he took a drink of water. Feeling clearer, he put his hands into the bucket and threw cold water on his face until he felt awake. He toweled himself dry, and straightened his plain ochre robe. He slid the door aside and went to the main hall of the little inn. There was the innkeeper’s wife, but the owner had not returned. Some of the local men were just leaving and she seemed upset. She was dressed in plain white cotton, and was kneeling near the cooking pit. Next to her was another monk whom he had never seen. He was an old man, with tired eyes and a large and capable face. His shaved head sparkled with gray stubble. He had a wispy beard, and the black trimmed robe of an elder monk of some accomplishment. Next to him was a birdcage with a golden finch, which danced nervously on a stick. He was speaking to the woman and though she listened, her thoughts seemed far away. At the sight of Shoji, the old man stood up suddenly and bowed in his direction. Shoji bowed to him. “I’m sorry,” he said to the old man. “I’m interrupting you. I can go back to my room and return if you wish.” “You’re a monk,” the old man said. “A biwa hoshi,” said Shoji. The old man seemed less pleased at this. “A traveling musician monk?” “I specialize in the Heikyoku chants, the Tales of Heike,” said Shoji. “I’m here on pilgrimage, to visit the straits of Agame no Seki, on the anniversary of the battle of Dan No Ura. In exchange for their generosity, I have promised the innkeeper to perform some of the chants for his guests.” “Are you attached to your music?” Shoji felt annoyed. Here he was, trying to be friendly, and already the old man had seen the fault within him. He had met monks like this before. Vows, intended to generate compassion, sometimes had a way of making their hearts colder. “Generosity must always be repaid in kind,” he said, determined to keep to his humility. The young woman, who had been introduced to him last night over dinner, seemed to be in turmoil. “Good morning Hirome-san. How are you?” “Not well, Shoji-san. Ichimatsu is dead.” Instantly, without any pretense of formality, he ran over to the young woman and fell to his knees in front of her. “Ichimatsu? Dead?” She tensed and held in her tears. The old man looked irritated. “Dead. Drowned.” “How did it happen?” “He went fishing in Agame no Seiki early this morning, before dawn. It’s when the bonito are feeding and we wanted to catch some to feed the guests. They found his boat upside down, washed up on the shore this morning. He’s drowned and gone.” Shoji bowed to the old man. “I’ve not introduced myself properly. My name is Shoji.” “Ichinori.” The old man
made a slight bow. “I don’t play music. I leave that to
my birds.” He gestured to the finch in the cage. “I had
been asked to come to the inn to perform purification rites for the
angry spirits that this time of year brings. It may be that I am already
too late. Now that this tragedy has occurred, I will be staying here
for a few days.” “This is a difficult time. As you say, this is the anniversary of the battle of Dan No Ura. But for the people here of Agame no Seki, this is not a time for celebration. The angry spirits of the Taira Clan, the Heike as you say, return to the world and as you see, sometimes pull innocent souls to their palace beneath the sea.” Shoji never liked to hear this kind of talk. It was no comfort to Hirome, and he liked this gentle woman. He liked her very much. “What will you do, Hirome-san, now that your husband is gone? How will you manage?” “We have no children,” she said. “The inn is my property until I marry. There are many men who would like to have it. I only have to wait for the best offer. But I will miss him, Shoji-san. He was a good man, kind and generous. I have lost a good man. I failed to give him a son.” She looked as though she wanted to fling herself into someone’s arms, but there was no one. Shoji bowed deeply to her. “I’m sorry for your loss.” She nodded and turned away. Ichinori closed his eyes, and in a low growl began to chant from the Diamond Sutra. Shoji admired women. He admired their strength. When he was an apprentice monk, his music master, biwa hoshi Takeru, had said to him, “When you have grown sufficiently in compassion, you may be reborn as a woman…” He felt intimidated by her. Partly by her sexual gravity, which he felt drawn to, but also by her acceptance of her fate, her stillness in the face of loss. What are we ascetics in the presence of such a person? She gives her body to a man and produces a baby. She gives her body to a baby and produces a man. We monks, with our vows, aren’t much compared to them. Hirome, without her husband, had suddenly become hard for Shoji to be around. Her body attracted him. Her submissive courtesy and obvious awe of him as a skilled musician had flattered and aroused him from the time he had arrived, two days ago. It was the pride again. He would never be at peace around a woman, any woman, because he longed so much to feel their admiration of him. He had only known Ichimatsu a little, and so had no great sense of grief for him. But for Hirome, he felt worlds of grief. He watched her going about the business of the inn, in the midst of her tragedy, and searched his feelings of compassion for her. In the afternoon, Ichinori went from room to room, scattering handfuls of holy salt in the corners and chanting Sutras for the dead spirit’s appeasement. Shoji sat with his biwa, next to the caged finch, and listened to it sing while Ichinori worked. He tuned the silk strings of the biwa and picked at them absently. He thought of the dream woman’s poem. Here was a good opportunity to finish it, but he had nothing to write with. With the bachi, he began to write characters in the sand of the cooking pit. In heaven flies one Ichinori returned to the room and saw him writing in the sand. Shoji felt his disapproval and ignored him. |