“Many people walk through this compound. Most of them do not know how to handle a knife.”
“That is not true. There are very few people about after nine o’clock. Even when we found the dead woman a crowd didn’t gather. And whoever killed Miss Davis either hated her or was frightened of her. To hate or to fear takes time. The feeling isn’t born overnight. Miss Davis only spent a few months in Japan and kept herself apart. The only person she involved herself with was you. You were her teacher. She came here every night. But she also came during the day. Did you sleep with her, Ohno-san?”
The priest’s head jerked forward briefly. “I did.”
“She seduced you?”
The head jerked again.
“She was in love with you?”
Ohno’s even white teeth sparkled briefly in the soft moonlight.
“No. To love means to be prepared to give. She wanted to have. And she wanted me to give to her. The way has many secrets, many powers. Our training, when practiced properly, is complete. It is also slow, unbearably slow. Miss Davis comes from a country that believes in quick results. Americans are capable of great effort, but they want rewards. She suspected that I knew something and she wanted what I knew.”
“You were teaching her meditation. You were giving.”
“Yes. But meditation takes forever, or so she began to believe. She wanted to be initiated, to be given powers. I told her my rank was too low, my development too minute. Only a true teacher can pass a student. This temple is a little school for beginners, for toddlers. The abbot knows I have disciples and he watches them. He will take over when he feels that the disciples are ready. Mr. McGraw is sometimes allowed to see the abbot. He has learned much — he has learned to be modest. Miss Davis had learned to be the opposite.”
“She tried to force you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I am a weak man, a silly man. She began to visit me during the day. I have lived in America and I am very proud of my experience with foreigners. We flirted. Then we slept together.”
“In the room where we were earlier on tonight?”
“Yes.”
“The room where you have your cameras?”
“Yes. The camera can be set so that it goes off after several seconds. I showed her how. She laughed and set it and pressed herself against me. We had no clothes on. The camera clicked. She took the photograph with her. I didn’t understand what she meant to do. I thought it was a joke.”
“She threatened to show the photograph to the abbot?”
“Yes. Today. She came to see me this morning. She said she was prepared to continue her meditation practice for another year, but she wanted something right now. Some power. That was all she wanted — not insight, just power. She said I knew about the secret initiations and that I must make her break through. I told her we have no secret initiations. I told her that perhaps in Tibet they do, but not here.”
“She planned to visit the abbot tonight?”
“Tomorrow. I had to stop her.”
Saito waited. “And the abbot, what would he have done?”
“He would have sent me away. And rightly so, for I have failed. I am only a low-ranking priest. My training has hardly begun. That I am allowed to teach meditation to beginners is a great honor. I am not worthy of the honor.”
Ohno’s voice dropped and Saito had to strain his ears to hear the priest’s words through the chirping of the cicadas.
“Tonight,” Ohno said, “I watched her walk through the gate. I ran through the garden and climbed the wall so that I would be waiting for her when she turned the corner of the temple wall and the alley. I had taken a knife from the kitchen. I put myself in her way and showed her the knife. I asked her to give me the photograph. She laughed and tried to push me aside. I became very angry. I don’t think I intended to kill her, I only meant to threaten. But her laugh infuriated me.”
“Do you have the photograph?”
“Yes. I don’t remember how I got it. I must have taken it from the pocket of her jacket.”
“And now you plan to kill yourself,” Saito said pleasantly.
“Yes.”
“But how can you continue your training when you are dead? Isn’t this life supposed to be the ideal training ground and isn’t whatever comes afterward a period of rest in which nothing can be achieved? You may have to wait a long time before you are given another chance. Is this not so?”
The dark shape next to Saito moved. “Yes.”
“I don’t know anything,” Saito said. “But priests sometimes come to our house to burn incense in front of the family altar and to chant the holy sermons. I have listened. Isn’t that what they say? What you say?”
“Yes.”
“And if you come with me, if you allow yourself to be arrested and to face the court and be convicted and spend time in jail, doesn’t that mean that your training will continue? That you can go on with your practice? And won’t the abbot, who is a master and your teacher, come and visit you or send messages, and help you along?”
“Yes.”
“And isn’t it true that we all fail? And that failure is never definite? That we can always correct our situation, no matter how bad it seems to be?”
“Yes.”
Saito thought he had said enough. He was tired of listening to his own voice. He brought out a cigarette and lit it. Ohno’s hand reached out and Saito gave him the cigarette and lit another. They smoked together. The two stubs left the porch at the same moment and sparked away as they hit the wet moss of the garden.
They walked to the gate slowly, two men strolling through the peaceful night.
“I was worried when you said you suspected Tanaka,” Ohno said. “He is a nice boy.”
“Yes,” Saito said. “He was the most likely suspect, but something didn’t fit. Indecent exposure is an act of surrender, not of aggression. I would have arrested him if he had drawn the face or body of Miss Davis. But his fantasies are centered on the beauty of our own women.
I checked just now at your neighbor’s temple. Miss Davis was beautiful, but not to young Tanaka. I don’t think she was even female in his eyes.”
“She was in mine.”
Saito didn’t answer. They had passed through the main gate and reached the car. Saito leaned inside and touched the horn. The driver appeared immediately from the station.
“Headquarters, please. This venerable priest is coming with us.”
“Sir.” The driver bowed to Ohno. Ohno bowed back.
Saito felt pleased. He had solved the case quickly, discreetly. This could be the credit that would get him transferred to the capital. He grinned but the grin froze halfway. He tried to analyze his state of mind but he was bewildered. The more he probed, the emptier his mind seemed.
He felt the priest’s presence and then his own hand reached out and touched the wide sleeve of Ohno’s robe.
“Yes,” Ohno said, “you were right, Inspector-san. It was silly of me to consider my shame and to respond to that shame. I am what I am and I will continue from the point where I find myself. The point happens to be bad, that is all. There will be good points later on, and they won’t matter so much either. Ha!”
Saito grinned. The priest’s words had helped to make the grin break through, the priest’s words and the strange power of quietness he had felt seeping into his being while he wandered among the temples of Daidharmaji. And he realized that he didn’t care about his successful investigation or about the forthcoming praise of his superiors or about the possibility of a transfer to the capital. The priest’s shame was as much of an illusion as his own fame. He felt much relieved, lightheaded. The grin spread over his face. “Ha!” The laugh was as carefree as Ohno’s laugh had been.