I do not recall if
Your touch was ever as sweet
As the evening breeze
I called for Anzu and then—unreasonably—called again, louder, when she did not appear at once. She came at a run, alarmed at the urgency in my voice.
She fussed around me, scolding me for walking so far and offering her arm for support. I took it readily. I was so sunk in self-pity, I wanted nothing but to be comforted.
“What were you thinking of, Mi-chan, to walk so far? Did Brother Tengen help you?” she demanded as we walked down the corridor. Anzu was not tall, but I was still shorter than she was. Unreasonably, that annoyed me as well. I was fifteen, had I stopped growing? Was I fated to always appear as nothing more than a child?
I answered sulkily, “I had my crutch. I didn’t need his help.”
“I’m sure he would have been glad to support you.” The anxiety had fled from Anzu’s voice. Instead, I heard the smothered laughter I had noticed before when she talked about Tengen. She slid open my shoji and helped me through. “There, sit down. Shall I bring you some tea, Mi-san? Or perhaps you are hungry? With Brother Tengen arriving so unexpectedly, I didn’t want to interrupt to ask if you wanted to eat at mid-day.”
I had not even realized I had missed the meal. I was hungry, but my appetite was dampened when I recalled that I had not offered Tengen any food as I usually did when his stay coincided with a meal. The temple was at least an hour’s walk from our house, even for a strong man who could set a good pace. I was aware that temple monks had one meal a day. If that were so, if he had missed the mid-day meal today at the temple, he would have to starve until noon the next day. Immediately, I felt intensely guilty.
“I am not at all hungry,” I lied. Anzu looked at me with worried eyes and I gave in. She would nag if I didn’t eat or drink something. “Perhaps some tea,” I conceded.
Before she could go, a thought came to me and I called Anzu back. “Anzu, why were you so certain Brother Tengen would come back? I think he was very angry when I spilled ink on his robe.”
“Brother Tengen would never stay angry for long with you, Mi-san.” She had her hand in front of her mouth, as if she was smothering a giggle. That annoyed me as well.
“Why do you think that?” I spoke firmly, hoping that Anzu would see I was not going to put up with any silliness.
“Because he’s besotted with you, Mi-san. Anybody could see that.”
I almost replied, Anybody but me, but I was so surprised I said nothing, just stared at my giggling amah.
“It’s obvious even in the way he looks at you when he first sees you. His face is tender, as if he sees you as a wounded bird that needs to be cared for. A lot of big men are like that. They adore small women, and with your leg being as it is, he thinks you need to be protected.” She must have seen the disbelief in my expression as Anzu went on quickly. “It’s not just me who’s noticed. All the housemaids think the same. And they think it’s a wicked shame that a handsome man like Brother Tengen should be a monk. None of us can understand that. Such a waste!”
“Then you and the maids should be ashamed of yourselves,” I said sharply. “It’s nothing to do with any of us why Brother Tengen became a monk. He is, and that’s all there is to it. And as for him being besotted with me, I’ve never heard such nonsense. I’m his pupil, and I can assure you that is how he thinks of me. Now, go and get my tea before I get really angry with you.”
Anzu turned obediently, but not before I could see she was still smiling broadly.
I shook my head in disbelief. Anzu and the maids were silly girls who obviously had too much time on their hands. If they could see how Brother Tengen was with me when we were alone, they would soon change their opinion.
I drank my tea without tasting it. No matter that I knew it was nonsense, I could not quite disbelieve Anzu’s words. Or was it just that I didn’t want to? I was embarrassed at the very thought. Brother Tengen was a holy man, a monk. How had they arrived at such a ridiculous conclusion, based on nothing at all? And yet, I was tempted into wondering.
Was it really just me who had felt the prickle of excitement between us when we had touched? And Tengen had come back no matter how angry he had been with me. I laid my palm flat on my left thigh, feeling the ugliness there and grimacing at it. What nonsense all this was. What man—apart from the dreadful Yuto—could find a cripple attractive?
Tengen saw me as a wounded bird? Someone who needed to be cared for? I shook my head angrily. It was nonsense. It really was. Apart from anything else, there was no getting past the fact that Tengen was a monk. He had dedicated himself to a life of religious devotion. It was not possible that he should even see me as a woman.
But if he did, what then? I pulled my kimono away from my withered leg. It disgusted me so much that I looked at it only rarely. But now, I stared and wondered. The repulsive Yuto had looked at me with lust in his eyes when he had visited. Innocent as I was, I had seen that and guessed that to him I was not a thing to be treasured and cared for, but something he could tease and—yes—hurt.
But he had not looked at me with any interest at all before my illness. Was it possible that he had, in the nastiest of ways, found my deformity attractive? And if Yuto had found my withered leg enticing, then who was to say whether Tengen might also find it alluring? A wounded bird, Anzu had said.
Fury built in my belly, leaving me feeling sick. Any man who found me attractive was beneath contempt, monk or not. Somehow that train of thought led me to understand how Anzu—and the maids—had come to misinterpret how Tengen looked at me.
They thought themselves so very worldly, and me so innocent. But it was they who were wrong, not me. Brother Tengen was a Buddhist monk. To him, all life was sacred. I didn’t doubt for one moment that the fact that I was deformed distressed him. Naturally, it did. He would know that I could never be healed, that I was fated to limp through life, attracting nothing but pity from anybody who looked at me.
Wounded animal? Yes, that was exactly how he saw me—an ugly, broken animal.
At that moment, I hated Brother Tengen as much as I hated myself.