Thomas Randall - The Waking

“Okay. I’ll come.”

Miho beamed.

Kara sat with Miho in the middle of Miss Aritomo’s classroom, listening to the art teacher talk about the Noh theater club. The woman spoke with contagious passion, eyes alight with a love for her subject. No wonder Dad has a crush on her, she thought. Petite and very pretty, Aritomo-sensei had a quiet intelligence and a bright smile, and Kara had yet to see her in an outfit she didn’t envy. Today she wore a simple white blouse and beige skirt, but the cut was so stylish that she looked like she’d just stepped off a runway.

Any time Miss Aritomo’s name came up, Kara’s father got a certain look in his eyes, a glimmer of a grin that he couldn’t hide. He might not even know how attracted he was to her, but Kara knew him too well to miss it. She’d seen him grieve and, though he had laughed a lot as well in the past two years, when things were quiet, he often got a lost, distant look in his eyes that she could never seem to erase. He might not think he was ready to fall in love with someone else, but every time she saw that glimmer in his eye, Kara made a wish that it could happen for him.

As for Noh theater, Kara found everything about it fascinating. As an art form, it dated back seven hundred years. The masks, the costumes, and the precision of the performances all seemed to her to reflect the magic and mystery that Japan represented in her heart.

Miss Aritomo had welcomed them all and seemed very pleased to see Kara, which made her feel good. She had spoken briefly about the origins of Noh theater and the respect that its greatest practitioners received, as well as the seriousness with which all those involved approached their work.

“In total,” Miss Aritomo told the gathered students, “there are only about two hundred and fifty Noh plays.”

Kara raised her hand. From the surprise on Miss Aritomo’s face, she realized she probably should have waited until the end of the presentation to ask questions, but her hand was already up.

“Yes, Kara?”

“I’m sorry, Aritomo-sensei, but didn’t you say that Noh theater had been performed for seven hundred years?”

Miss Aritomo nodded. “That’s right.”

“And there are only two hundred and fifty plays?” To her, it seemed like Noh theater could be no different from novels, with millions of stories to be told.

The teacher smiled. “It is a precise art form, not something that can be created quickly. But you are right to question the number. Over the centuries there were certainly many more, but still not as many as you might imagine. Only specific kinds of stories have ever been considered appropriate for Noh theater, so the number of works is naturally limited.”

Then she had shown them a long scene from a Noh play entitled “Aoi no Ue” on DVD, and Kara had watched, breathless. Like the limitations on form and story, the slow movements of the performers interested Kara a great deal. The skill involved impressed her as immense, similar to the discipline in ballet. What she had gleaned from a quick online search on Sunday morning did not begin to communicate the strange, dreamlike beauty of the actual performance, which in this case had something to do with exorcising the spirit of one woman from the body of another. It seemed most Noh plays had something to do with gods or monsters or spirits.

So weird, she thought, watching that ten-minute scene. In the U.S., ghost stories get no respect, but here, it’s high art.

While watching the DVD, though, Kara caught several members of the Noh club-boys and girls-sneaking dark looks in her direction. These weren’t soccer girls, obviously, since they were in the Noh club. It wasn’t Ume’s clique but other students Kara didn’t know yet.

She brushed it off, trying to ignore it, but the longer it went on, the more she began to feel unwelcome.

“One element of Noh theater that many find interesting is the solitary preparation of the performers,” Miss Aritomo explained toward the end of the presentation. “Unlike most theater, Noh performers work in private. The actors and singers practice independently, only joining all of their efforts together for the actual performance, which adds to the challenge but also introduces a spiritual, ritualistic element that we will discuss in future meetings.”

Something struck the back of Kara’s head. She grunted and turned around, even as she heard the ping of metal on the floor. A five-yen coin rolled a few feet and then fell over.

Someone had thrown it at her.

Several of the club members would not look at her. Others stared at her in curiosity or defiance, as if to say, What are you going to do about it?

“Kara?” Miss Aritomo asked, “Is something wrong?”

She considered speaking up but knew it would get her nowhere. Nobody would admit to having thrown the coin, and no one would tell on whoever had done it. She was an outsider.

“I’m sorry,” Kara said, bowing her head. “Something buzzed around my head. It must have been a fly.”

Miss Aritomo gave her an odd look. “All right. Let me know if any other flies trouble you.”

Again, Kara inclined her head.

When Miss Aritomo began to speak again, Kara risked a glance at Miho, who sat in the next row, one seat up. The quiet girl might not come to her own defense, but the glare she cast back toward the kids sitting behind Kara was withering. It made Kara feel a little better, but not much.

After the club meeting ended, she and Miho went downstairs and waited for Sakura outside in the rain. They hid in the arch of the doorway on the side of the building, where Sakura usually smoked. The rain had lightened, but still they were thankful for the overhang of the roof and the recessed door.

“What did you think?” Miho asked, in English.

Kara blinked, taking a moment to switch her brain back into English. “It’s cool.”

Miho smiled at the Western slang. “Cool, yes. Very cool.”

“But I don’t think it’s for me.”

“Don’t…,” Miho started, and then switched back to Japanese. When she was upset, the effort it required for her to speak English made her impatient. “Don’t let them stop you from joining. You’ll enjoy it. And those idiots will leave you alone once they know you. They’ll get used to you.”

Kara leaned her head back against the door, staring out at the rain, wondering what was taking Sakura so long. She sighed and looked at Miho. Raindrops had beaded on the girl’s glasses, but Miho had not bothered to wipe them.

“I won’t get used to them. I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I can be a part of that group. I understand why you love Noh theater so much. I want to love it, too. The costumes and masks are amazing and it seems so…” She didn’t know the Japanese word for ethereal. “It feels almost like a dream. And I adore Miss Aritomo. She’s really sweet. But if I’m around those people, I don’t think I’ll be able to love it, Miho. It’s pretty clear I’m not welcome there, maybe because I’m a gaijin and Noh is such an ancient Japanese tradition. But the reason doesn’t really matter. I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted.”

Maybe calligraphy was the way to go after all.

“I’m sorry,” Miho said. She looked disappointed but did not try to change Kara’s mind.

“Me too.”

The girls stood in the recession another few minutes, just listening to the sound of the rain.

“This is strange,” Miho said.

“What is?”

“Sakura never takes so long. She likes calligraphy, but that doesn’t stop her from being the first one out the door when the meeting is over.”

“Maybe it isn’t over,” Kara suggested.

Miho shook her head. “No. They never go on this long.”

The tone of her voice, even more than the words, told Kara that Miho was worried. The way Sakura had been behaving the day before, in the wake of the discovery of Jiro’s body-she might just be feeling oversensitive. Maybe Sakura had just wanted some time alone.