On his deathbed, his lungs eaten away with cancer, and gasping for breath like a fish out of water, Takao Fukuda was still clinging to life. He could barely speak and was so weak that his attempts to communicate through writing proved useless, as his swollen, trembling hands could not form the delicate Japanese characters. He refused to eat, and whenever his family or the nurses weren’t looking, he pulled out the drip that was feeding him. He soon fell into a heavy doze, but Ichimei, who took turns with his mother and sister to be with him in the hospital, knew he was conscious and troubled. He would plump up the pillows so that he was half sitting up, dry off the perspiration, rub his scaly skin with lotion, put slivers of ice on his tongue, and talk to him about plants and gardens. In one of these intimate moments he saw his father’s lips moving, repeatedly articulating what sounded like the name of a brand of cigarettes, but the idea that in circumstances like these he might still want to smoke was so ridiculous Ichimei dismissed it. He spent the evening trying to decipher what his father was trying to say.
“Kemi Morita? Is that what you’re saying, Papa? Do you want to see her?” he asked finally.
Takao nodded with what little strength he had left.
Kemi Morita was the Oomoto spiritual leader. She was reputed to speak with the spirits, and Ichimei knew her well, because he often traveled to join the small communities who shared his religion.
“Papa wants us to call Kemi Morita,” Ichimei told Megumi.
“She lives in Los Angeles, Ichimei.”
“How much savings do we still have? We have to buy her ticket here.”
On the day Kemi arrived, Takao was no longer moving. He didn’t open his eyes, and the only sign of life was the purring of the respirator. He was suspended in limbo, waiting. Megumi had borrowed a car from a colleague at the factory and drove to the airport to pick up the priestess, who looked like a ten-year-old boy in her white pajamas. Her gray hair, her hunched shoulders, and the way she dragged her feet were in stark contrast to her smooth, wrinkle-free face, which was a serene bronze mask.
Kemi shuffled over to the bed and took Takao’s hand. The patient half-opened his eyes. It took him awhile to recognize his spiritual guide, but then an almost imperceptible smile brought a flicker of life back to his haggard features. Ichimei, Megumi, and Heideko withdrew to the back of the room while Kemi murmured a long prayer or poem in archaic Japanese. Then she bent her head down close to the dying man’s mouth. After several long minutes, Kemi kissed Takao’s brow and turned to the family.
“Takao’s mother, father, and grandparents are here. They have come from afar to guide him to the Other Side,” she said in Japanese, pointing to the end of the bed. “Takao is ready to depart, but before he does he has a message for Ichimei: ‘The Fukuda katana is buried in a garden overlooking the sea. It cannot remain there. Ichimei, you have to recover it and place it where it should be, on the altar of our family’s ancestors.’?”
When he heard the message, Ichimei bowed deeply, folding his hands in front of his face. The memory of the night they had buried the sword of the Fukudas had become blurred with the years, but Heideko and Megumi knew which garden it was.
“Takao is also asking for one last cigarette,” said Kemi before she left them.
* * *