Rama 3 – The Garden of Rama by Clarke, Arthur C.

While Kenji was remembering his boyhood rival, he felt very sorry for Keiko Murosawa, Nakamura’s wife, for whom Kenji himself had had a special affection when he was a sixteen-year-old in Kyoto. Kenji and Nakamura had, in fact, vied for the love of Keiko for almost a year. When Keiko had finally made it clear that she preferred Kenji over Toshio, young Nakamura had been furious. He had even confronted Kenji one morning, near the Ryoanji Tern pie, and threatened him physically.

/ might have married Keiko myself, Kenji thought, if I had stayed in Japan. He gazed out the window at the moss garden. It was raining outside. He suddenly had an

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especially poignant memory of a rainy day during his

adolescence.

Kenji had walked over to her house as soon as his father had told him the news. A Chopin concerto had greeted his ears the moment he turned into the lane leading to her house. Mrs. Murosawa had answered the door and had addressed him sternly. “Keiko is practicing now,” she had said to Kenji. “She won’t be finished for over an hour.”

“Please, Mrs. Murosawa,” the sixteen-year-old boy had said, “it’s very important.”

Her mother was about to close the door when Keiko herself caught sight of Kenji through the window. She stopped playing and rushed over, her radiant smile sending a rush of joy through the young man. “Hi, Kenji,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Something very important,” he replied mysteriously. “Can you come with me for a walk?”

Mrs. Murosawa had grumbled about the coming recital, but Keiko convinced her mother that she could afford to miss practice for one day. The girl grabbed an umbrella and joined Kenji in front of the house. As soon as they were out of view of her home, she slipped her arm through his, as she always did when they walked together.

“So, my friend,” Keiko said as they followed their normal route toward the hills behind their section of Kyoto. “What’s so very important?”

“I don’t want to tell you now,” Kenji answered. “Not here, anyway. I want to wait until we’re in the right place.”

Kenji and Keiko laughed and made small talk as they headed for Philosopher’s Walk, a beautiful path that wound for several kilometers along the bottom of the eastern hills. The route had been made famous by the twentieth century philosopher Nishida Kitaro, who supposedly took the walk every morning. It led past some of Kyoto’s most famous scenic spots, including Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion) and Kenji’s personal favorite, the old Buddhist temple called the Honen-In.

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Behind and to the side of the Honen-In was a small cemetery with about seventy or eighty graves and tombstones. Earlier that year Kenji and Keiko, while adventuring on their own, had discovered that the cemetery housed die remains of some of Kyoto’s most prominent citizens of the twentieth century, including the celebrated novelist Junichiro Tanizaki and the doctor/poet Iwao Matsuo. After their discovery, Kenji and Keiko made the cemetery men-regular meeting place. Once, after they had bom read The Makioka Sisters, Tanizaki’s masterpiece of Osaka life in (he 1930s, they had laughingly argued for over an hour— while sitting beside the author’s tombstone—about which of the Makioka sisters Keiko resembled the most.

On the day that Mr. Watanabe informed Kenji that the family was moving to America, it had already started to rain by the time Kenji and Keiko reached the Honen-In. There Kenji turned right onto a small lane and headed toward an old gate with a woven straw roof. As Keiko expected, they did not enter the temple, but instead climbed the steps leading to the cemetery. But Kenji did not stop at Tanizaki’s tomb. He climbed up higher, to another grave site.

“This is where Dr. Iwao Matsuo is buried,” Kenji said, pulling out his electronic notebook. “We are going to read a few of his poems.”

Keiko sat close beside her friend, the two of them nestled under her umbrella in the light rain, while Kenji read three poems. “I have one final poem,” Kenji then said, “a special haiku written by a friend of Dr. Matsuo’s.

“One day in the month of June, After a cooling dish of ice cream, We bid each other farewell.”

They were both silent for several seconds after Kenji recited the haiku from memory a second time. Keiko became alarmed and even a little frightened when Kenji’s serious expression did not waver. “The poem talks of a parting,” she said softly. “Are you telling me that—”

“Not by choice, Keiko,” Kenji interrupted her. He hes-

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itated for several seconds. “My father has been assigned to America,” he continued at length. “We will move there next month.”

Kenji had never seen such a forlorn look on Keiko’s beautiful face. When she looked up at him with those terribly sad eyes, he thought his heart would tear apart. He held her tightly in the afternoon rain, both of them crying, and swore he would love only her forever.

4

T!

•he younger waitress, the one in the light blue kimono with the old-fashioned obi, pulled back the sliding screen and entered the room. She was carrying a tray with beer and sake.

“Osake onegai shimasu,” Kenji’s father said politely, holding up his sake cup as the lady poured.

Kenji took a drink of his cold beer. The older waitress now returned, soundlessly, with a small plate of hors d’oeuvres. In the center was a shellfish of some kind, in a light sauce, but Kenji could not have identified either the mollusk or the sauce. He had not eaten more than a handful of these kaiseki meals in the seventeen years since he had left Kyoto.

“Campai,” Kenji said, clinking his beer glass against his father’s sake cup. “Thank you, Father. I am honored to be having dinner here with you.”

Kicho was the most famous restaurant in the Kansai region, perhaps in all of Japan. It was also frighteningly expensive, for it preserved the full traditions of personal service, private eating rooms, and seasonal dishes with

236 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE

only the highest quality ingredients. Every course was a delight to the eye as well as to the palate. When Mr. Watanabe had informed his son that they were going to dine alone, just the two of them, Kenji had never imagined that it would be at Kicho.

They had been talking about the expedition to Mars. “How many of the other colonists are Japanese?” Mr. Watanabe asked.

“Quite a few/’ Kenji replied. “Almost three hundred, if I remember correctly. There were many top-quality applications from Japan. Only America has a larger contingent.”

“Do you know any of the others from Japan personally?”

“Two or three. Yasuko Horikawa was briefly in my class in Kyoto in junior high school. You may remember her. Very, very smart. Buck teeth. Thick glasses. She is, or was, I should say, a chemist with Dai-Nippon.”

Mr. Watanabe smiled. “I think I do remember her,” he said. “Did she come over to the house the night that Keiko played the piano?”

“Yes, I think so,” Kenji said easily. He laughed. “But I have a hard time remembering anything other than Keiko from that night.”

Mr. Watanabe emptied his sake cup. The younger attendant, who was sitting unobtrusively on her knees in a corner of the tatami mat room, came to the table to refill it. “Kenji, I’m concerned about the criminals,” Mr. Watanabe said as the young lady departed.

“What are you talking about, Father?” Kenji said.

“I read a long story in a magazine that said die ISA had recruited several hundred convicts to be part of your Lowell Colony. The article stressed that all of the criminals had perfect records during their times of detention, as well as outstanding skills. But why was it necessary to accept convicts at all?”

Kenji took a swallow from his beer. “In truth, Father,” he replied, “we have had some difficulty with the recruitment process. First, we had an unrealistic view of how many people would apply and we set up screening criteria that were far too tough. Second, the five-year minimum

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time requirement was a mistake. To young people in particular, a decision to do anything for that long a period is an overwhelming commitment. Most importantly, the press seriously undermined the entire staffing process. At the time we were soliciting applications, there were myriad articles in magazines and ‘specials’ on television about the demise of the Martian colonies a hundred years ago. People were frightened that history might repeat itself and they too could be left permanently abandoned on Mars.”

Kenji paused briefly, but Mr. Watanabe said nothing. “In addition, as you are well aware, the project has had recurring financial crises. It was during a budget squeeze last year that we first began to consider skilled, model convicts as a way of solving some of our personnel and budgetary difficulties. Although they would be paid only modest salaries, there were still plenty of inducements to cause the convicts to apply. Selection meant granting of full pardons, and therefore freedom, when they returned to Earth after the five-year term. In addition, the ex-prisoners would be full citizens of Lowell Colony like everyone else, and would no longer have to tolerate the onerous monitoring of their every activity—”