The next afternoon Clem carefully
typed up what she had witnessed during her visit with Mohammed and Muezza. She loved the iPad’s large virtual keys, as
they made typing merely a chore rather than an impossibility. She finished, smiling a satisfied smile. Her writing style might not be as good as the
yarn lady’s but she also didn’t have someone who could proofread her work. And anyway, it’s not like she was going to
publish this like the yarn lady did with her blog and then the books when she’d
written a whole story. She saved the file
and looked at her list for the next topic to research. One of the first ones she had found was the
story of the Japanese Lucky Cat, or Maneki Neko. They were painted decorative cats with
symbols painted on their chests and one paw held up in the air as though the
cat was waving at someone. People put
them in Chinese restaurants (even though this happened in Japan) because it was
supposed to make the restaurant prosperous.
Clem guessed that meant a lot of customers who bought lots of food.
Clem read the brief story. A cat who lived at the temple had raised her
paw to a feudal lord as he walked by. The lord, who was surprised to be greeted by a
cat walked over to the temple entrance and out of nowhere a bolt of lightning
struck the tree next to where he had been walking and it caught fire, falling
to the ground. If the lord hadn’t come
over to the temple entrance he would have been killed. The website didn’t explain how that related
to prosperity. Maybe he’d made a
donation to the temple in thanks for it being there for him to walk into the entrance
and not get hit by lightning or the tree.
So, time for more research. This time she went directly to the site that
had the cat with hypnotic eyes and the words she couldn’t read at first, since
she’d bookmarked the website. The yarn
lady never used the bookmark feature on the iPad, so she felt safe saving
bookmarks. Instead of the hypnotic eyes
cat, today the website had an animation of a Japanese Lucky Cat that had golden
coins pouring out of its upraised paw in an unending stream. Clem stared at the coins as they poured out
of Maneki Neko’s hands…
…and found herself inside an old
rickety building that looked like nothing she had ever seen, even on television
or the Internet. The walls were
whitewashed with dark brown wood posts and beams along with what looked like
woven wood sliding panels where she would expect doors and windows. The floor was made of or covered with mats
that looked to be woven of grass. She
was sitting in the corner on one of those mats and she tried to dig her claws
into it to see if it was grass, and also to see if she could actually effect
the place she found herself in. She
could feel her claws digging into the mat, but as she pulled them out, the mat
looked exactly the same. That would have
not been the case if she were really there and clawing the mat. This must be another dream, Clem thought, and
set out to explore.
Since she had been reading about
the Japanese Lucky Cat, the first thing she looked for was a white cat with its
paw held up in the air sitting in a doorway.
Not only was there no cat, there was no doorway that she could
find. The light in the room came from a
place where one of the woven panels had been slid back partway, and it was a
bit high up for her to jump. Clem
started clawing at the panels, in hope that someone would hear her, or maybe
she could claw through the panel. She’d
already forgotten about her experience with the floor mats, and there was
neither sound nor movement produced by her claws. Clem was about to leap through the slit in
the kind-of window when the door panel slid back and an ancient man entered. He was simply dressed in a dark grey kimono
with a faded yellow or orange kashaya robe draped over one shoulder and wrapped
around his body. He was speaking what
she assumed to be Japanese, but after a moment or two she began to understand
what he was saying.
“So cold, so cold. I would like some tea, but I have no tea and
no money to buy tea. All I have are my
duties here and you, Tama.” The priest
looked around and realized he was talking to himself. “Tama, Tama!
Where are you? Aiee, you leave me
talking to myself, you silly cat.” The old
man shook his head, shuffled off into the corner furthest from any breeze that
might blow in the doorway and sank to the floor, putting his head in his
hands. He began to cry silently, but a
few sobs escaped as his shoulders shook with sadness and cold.
A grey cat with a few orange
patches that almost made the cat look like he was wearing his own kashaya
jumped down into the room from the window slit.
Landing lightly he ran over to the old priest and nuzzled his arms until
he could worm his way onto the old man’s lap.
Tama purred loudly and rocked slowly in the priest’s lap until his arms
wound around the cat in an embrace. “Oh
Tama, I have no money to buy my tea and if I were not given rice by the
neighbors I would starve. Any money I
have is spent to buy bits of fish or fowl for you. I have cared for you since you were a tiny
kitten, and I a much younger man. Can
you now care for me? Oh, help me, Tama,
or I will have to give you up, and that will be my death, as I will die from
sorrow.”
Tama sat in the old man’s embrace
until his sobs slowed and his arms loosened from around the cat. “My good Tama, go and catch yourself a mouse,
as I cannot even buy you a bait fish today.
Take care of yourself, my dear friend.
I will be fine.” The cat stood up
in his lap and carefully washed away the tears from his master’s face, nuzzled
him a few times and carefully climbed out of his lap. Tama walked out of the room and Clementine
followed. He stopped just outside the
doorway and moved to the side. Clem
followed and scooted past as she wanted to see the outside of the
building. She figured it had to be the
Japanese temple of the story, and she wanted to know what a temple looked
like.
After completing a circuit of the
outside of the temple she decided that if this wasn’t a run-down specimen of a
temple then Japanese building or architecture left a lot to be desired. The peaked roof was missing tiles, and several
of the beams holding up the roof where it extended out from the walls were
rotting away. The floor of the wrap-around
porch was soft in spots and in the back there was a section where the floor
boards had broken through and not been replaced or repaired. If she was a Buddhist, she probably wouldn’t
want to visit this temple, so it was likely the neighbors weren’t giving money
gifts for its maintenance, and probably only fed the poor old priest out of
pity.
Tama, the priest’s cat was sitting
on the porch looking sadly out at the neighborhood. He began to speak softly to himself. “Oh master, I wish I could do something to
help you. When you were young the state started
telling you what priests could do and not do, and stopped any government
support of our little temple. When I was
a kitten and there were more Buddhists in this area, you and I both ate
well. But now our neighbors have little
money and what they have they do not give to a temple that is in such bad
repair. Only the poorest even come to
you for funerals – they prefer to visit the fancier temples in better parts of Edo.” The cat shook his head and began to groom and
straighten out his rumpled and tear stained fur. He started with his hind quarters and tail and
worked his way up his back as a storm neared.
Clem sensed that the part of the story she had read might soon occur, so
she crouched on the opposite side of the open doorway and scanned the street
for the feudal lord. She guessed someone
like that would be dressed in very fancy clothing and maybe even carry a sword,
since after all this was Japan.
A middle-aged man dressed in a
plain black kimono was hurrying up the street, obviously anxious to get to
shelter before the storm broke. As he
came nearer the rain began and large heavy raindrops pattered down. The man stopped under a tree across the road. Clem looked at him, and figured that this was
no feudal lord. He looked like the
Japanese equivalent of a business man.
Still, she looked over at Tama, and noticed that he was licking his paws
and rubbing them along the side of his head to clean and arrange his fur. The man noticed Tama’s upraised paw and
stared. Again Tama licked his paw and
rubbed along his face. The man (who had
obviously never watched a cat bathe before) hurried across the road in the rain
and stepped up onto the porch and ducked into the doorway to keep dry. At the moment he entered the temple a bolt of
lightning hit the tree he had been standing under and it burst into flame. Within seconds, burning branches rained down
where the man had been standing.
The man stared at the burning tree
and then at the cat, who was frozen in surprise, paw held to the side of his
head and very slowly bowed to the cat. “I
owe you a great debt, sir cat. Your
beckoning me to come over to this temple saved my life. Please…take me to your master.” He stepped to the side of the doorway, and
swept his hand to invite the cat inside.
This was an opportunity Tama
realized was not to be missed. The man’s
kimono, although simple was made of fine cloth and his voice betrayed an
educated accent. Tama stood and regally
walked inside, announcing his presence with a loud meow. He walked towards the old priest, continuing
to meow loudly. It was dark inside the
temple, as the clouds had limited what light was available to come in from
outside. Tama could see his master
huddled in the corner, but probably the visitor could not.
“Tama, is that you calling me? Have you gotten wet from the rain? Well, if you have, come here. I may not have any food to give you, but I do
have a cloth to dry you off with.” The
priest laughed, “It is my second-best kashaya, which means it is a rag rather
than an almost rag.” He reached out with
his hands swathed in the ragged bit of robe and caught Tama in his arms. “Eh, you seem dry to me. Please do not tell me your hunting was
unsuccessful, or we may both go hungry tonight.” He cuddled the cat close to him, seeking
reassurance from its presence.
The visitor cleared his throat and
spoke. “Excuse me, kind sir. Are you the owner of this grey cat with the
orange spots? Your noble cat invited me
into your temple and by doing so saved my life.
The tree I was standing beneath was hit by a bolt of lightning and I
would have been killed by either the lightning or the burning branches that
fell from the tree. I owe the owner of
this cat a great debt and I am a man who pays his debts.”
The priest struggled to his feet,
also recognizing a voice belonging to a man who was well-educated and sure of his
own authority and importance. “Kind sir,
please allow me to light a lamp for you.
I usually sit in the dark, as it helps my meditations….” The old man’s voice faltered.
“And I wager because you can’t afford
lamp oil if you are unsure from where the evening meal for you and your cat is
to come. Light the lamp and let me see
you. Neither you nor your cat will ever
lack for food or light again.” As the priest
lit the lamp he recognized the man standing in front of him as one of the
daimyo of the Kanto region. He nearly
dropped the lamp in his haste to bow to the daimyo.
“No, please do not bow to me. If your cat had not summoned me, I would not
be alive at this moment. Let me and my
people serve you and your fine cat.” The
daimyo walked to the doorway and was met by several anxious men who gathered
around him all talking at once. Clementine
was able to determine from their conversation that they were servants of the
daimyo (who did turn out to be a Japanese feudal lord) who had been aware that
their master had left the house without them.
When they saw the storm approaching they rushed to follow him to his
destination, carrying a jacket and umbrellas for him. He dismissed their questions with a wave and
gave them instructions to bring hot food, lights, warm clothing and a full set
of bedding to the temple.
Within a half-hour the old priest
was dressed in warm clothing in a well-lit room eating the best meal he had
eaten in years. The daimyo walked around
the temple and discreetly poked at rotting wood or damaged wood panels while
the priest ate. When the priest lay down
the bowl with a satisfied sigh the lord dropped to sit on the mat next to the
priest. “As a daimyo of one of the largest
han in Kanto, I have participated in many votes regarding the support of the
Buddhist temples and voted to cut money for their maintenance. Obviously although I saw no need to support
those who teach the wheel of life, the wheel of life saw fit to allow my
continued existence today.” He laughed
and shook his head. “Although I cannot
restore the government money that has been taken from you, I will pledge my personal
support to repair this temple and provide ongoing support for you and your cat,
who saved my life.” He stood up and bowed down to Tama three times
to show his appreciation. Clementine,
who had come inside and watched all of this, found her eyes misting over with
tears at the beauty of this moment.
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