The letter to Ming Kwok was never despatched. Right after I signed it I felt a violent chill that utterly overpowered me. What followed I cannot recall much, falling in and out of consciousness intermittently. It is the third week since I first fell ill. I started to get my senses back a week ago.
Reiko nursed me and never tells me any particulars of what happened unless I asked. The first thing I said to her was “the competition!” So she took something off the top of my bedside table and placed in my right hand.
“Matsuo Sensei visited you many times and brought many of these perfume bags. She said it would help if you could smell this fragrance and keep your soul with us. You missed the competition but there’s always next year! How glad I am that you can speak again!”
I smiled and felt much better. Perhaps I would’ve been more disappointed if the competition was just the day before but by then it didn’t really matter. Matsuo Sensei is indeed very thoughtful, who knows, maybe I really found the strength to fight the demons who wanted to take me down because I had this familiar fragrance to support me.
Oka-san certainly got a big fright. She has decided that the whole establishment needs to be exorcised by as many monks as Kiyomizu-dera can spare for as many days. In the meantime she ordered Reiko and I to go abroad to “cleanse the demons and their airs off us”. I am sure she had our best interest in her heart. And I was grateful for the unprecedented freedom.
We are setting off first thing in the morning. I have also packed the letter to Ming Kwok. I am sure I will have plenty of time to decide on what to do with it on our long, long way to Ryuukyuu.
