As she read the passage, a vivid memory came of her mother reciting the invocation to Amida each morning, bowing deeply before their family shrine in Tomo’s long-forgotten home in the country. Clinging to her mother’s knees the infant Tomo had gazed up into her face, watching the lips that moved not as when they spoke normally but with a mechanical mouthing as they repeated incessantly the Namu Amida Butsu. Tomo too had chanted ‘Namu Amida Butsu’ in imitation of her, but many years had lapsed since the words had passed her lips. All talk of the Buddha and of Amida had come to seem like a pack of lies to deceive children. The injunction in her mother’s letter to leave everything to the Buddha only irritated her: what was she supposed to leave to him, and how? If there were some noble being, some god or Buddha, who could see all that went on in the human world, why did he not make life more decent for one who tried as hard as she to live truthfully? But despite these thoughts Tomo resolved that as soon as the opportunity arose she would at least arrange to go home as her mother wished. Whatever happened, she must hear directly from her mother those last wishes that could not be conveyed by letter alone.

The following spring, Governor Kawashima was appointed to a new post as Superintendent-General of the Metropolitan Police, and Yukitomo Shirakawa and his family followed him to Tokyo where they were installed with due ceremony in an official Police Department residence in the Soto-Kanda district of the capital. Tomo, who had had a copy of the family entry in the official register made in connection with Etsuko’s change of school, was holding the flimsy piece of paper in her hand when she glanced down casually at it and a small cry escaped her. Directly after Etsuko’s name was listed the name of Suga, as the adopted daughter of Yukitomo Shirakawa and of his wife Tomo.

The Handmaid

It was a typically bright, faintly chilly afternoon in the chrysanthemum season.

Kin Kusumi was trotting through the gateway of what was now the Imperial Palace carrying a basket of crackers that she had bought as a present on a visit to the temple of Kannon. She was on her way to the residence of Superintendent Shirakawa within the grounds, and since she had other business there today besides the usual polite inquiries after the family’s health she was much preoccupied with the chances of success for her mission.