The GoldenCity

They arrived at Shukunegi in the evening. The village was a settlement of about fifty homes squeezed into a coastal canyon. At the mouth of the canyon the fisherman had built a bamboo wall with a pair of gates at the center. The wall made the village look like a fort built to resist barbarian invaders, but the real enemies were the ice storms that roared out of Siberia and hit the western side of the island.

Billy led Hollis through the gates and into the village. The modern two-story houses had electricity and running water, but they were built very close to each other, with dirt passageways between the buildings. A stream ran through Shukunegi; the sound of rushing water mingled with the wind and the faint echo of laughter from a television set in someone’s home.

Following the stream up the canyon, they walked past a community center and a sprawling graveyard filled with statues of the Buddha and lichen-covered gravestones. Aunt Kimiko’s two-story home was in the middle of the graveyard, toward the end of the canyon. Like many of the villagers, she had placed a black rock on each roof tile. The rocks were supposed to keep the wind from ripping up the tiles, but they made the roof look like an odd board game that was waiting for players.

There were no locks on any of the houses in the village-only wooden latches. Billy slipped off his muddy shoes and then entered the house without knocking. Hollis remained alone on the doorstep and listened to a woman’s voice coming from within. The voice was high-pitched and happy, as if Billy’s arrival was an unexpected gift. A few minutes later, an elderly Japanese woman-as small as a child-hurried to the door, bowing and talking and welcoming her guest.

***

Billy spent a few days on the island before returning to Tokyo. He would talk to the other men who danced to rock and roll music in the park and see if there was a safe way for a foreigner to slip out of Japan. Hollis explored Shukunegi and quickly found a job that would help the village. A brick retaining wall at the base of the cliff was beginning to collapse. Using Aunt Kimiko’s tools, he would tear the wall down and build a new one. The fact that a strong foreigner had agreed to do a difficult job for free made the villagers very happy.

Aunt Kimiko woke around six in the morning. She would serve Hollis a breakfast of sticky rice, miso soup, and one dish that always surprised him. Once she presented him with an enormous sea snail and watched him rip the salty brown flesh out of the black shell. After Hollis finished breakfast, he performed some martial arts exercises, then carried his tools over to the retaining wall. Usually, two or three old women wearing pink rubber boots would sit on benches and watch him work. Hollis had never been so conscious of his own body, the strength of his arms and legs. Whenever he lifted something heavy, the old women murmured to each other and clapped their hands to show approval.

Working every day calmed him down and brought some order to his life. First he dug a trench, then he began to lay bricks, filling the cavity behind the wall with buckets of gravel he had taken from the beach. Hollis was slow and deliberate with each part of the job, using a length of twine to make sure the foundation was level. As he mixed concrete and slapped it on the bricks, he began see his past choices with a new sense of clarity.

Vicki had told him that he was on the right path. “If you remember who you are, you’ll know what to do.” So who am I? Hollis wondered. Back in Los Angeles, he had taught his students to never use violence for negative goals. The true warrior used both mind and heart. The true warrior was calm within, not ruled by anger. He remembered standing on a London rooftop with a sniper rifle and felt ashamed.

More bricks and more mortar. Build the wall higher. Straight and true.

***

It was his fifteenth day in the village. After working on the wall in the morning, he ate some rice and tempura and wandered through the graveyard that surrounded the houses. Dead flowers. Old coins in a rusty kettle filled with rainwater. A line of chubby stone Buddhas with white cotton caps and little bibs tied around their necks.

He went out the gate, and then walked along the tide line to a black sand beach littered with plastic bottles, automobile tires and all the other debris of the modern world. Pine trees clung to the rocks like bonsai, and the waves fell softly onto the shore.

Know this my love… Believe this my love… the Light survives. Vicki had traveled a long way to tell him that and now it was the foundation of his faith. If someone truly thought you were a good person, it could change you forever. Perhaps that’s why God had created holy men and women. They saw the Light within others, and sometimes that inspired people to live up to an ideal.