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"Fishing once more? "carpenters pencils carpenters pcarpenters pencilsencilstcarpenters pencilse 128 .In using this system, absentee voters werecarpenters pencils instructed to mark their ballots with number two pencils. The optical scanner rejected ballots which were marked withcarpenters pencils instruments other than number two pencil. 2006, Barbara Slater Stern, curriculum and teaching dialogue: V. 8, page 33."Mrs. Landry, I forgot to bring my number two pencils! Does that mean I flunk this test?" Big tears filled Joey's eyes. A standard, ordinary number 2 pencil, one which is not colored or mechanical or carpenters pencilsin We are professional number2 pencil manufacturer of China, making any kind of 2b pencil for our customers worldwide. Our number two pencidream of doing literary translation work for one of the big publishing houses in Bangkok.
Nai taught school during the week and was a tourist guide on the weekend. On the Saturday before the ISA interview, Nai was conducting a tour in Chiang Mai, thirty kilometers from her home. In her group were several Japanese, one of whom was a handsome, articulate young man in his early thirties who spoke practically unaccented English. His name was Kenji Watanabe. He paid very close attention to everything Nai said, always asked intelligent questions, and was extremely polite.
Near the end of the tour of the Buddhist holy places in the Chiang Mai area, the group rode the cable car up the mountain Doi Suthep to visit the famous Buddhist temple on its summit. Most of the tourists were exhausted from the day's activities, but not Kenji Watanabe. First the man insisted on climbing the long dragon stairway, like a Buddhist pilgrim, rather than riding the funicular from the cable car exit to the top. Then he asked question after question while Nai was explaining the wonderful story of the founding of the temple. Finally, when they had descended and Nai was sitting by herself, having tea in the lovely restaurant at the foot of the mountain, Kenji left the other tourists in the souvenir shops and approached her table.
"Kaw tode krap," he said in excellent Thai, astonishing Miss Buatong. "May I sit down? I have a few more questions."
"Khun pode pasa thai dai mai ka?" Nai asked, still shocked.
"Pohm kao jai pasa thai dai nitnoy," he answered, indicating that he understood a little Thai. "How about you? Anata wa nihon go hanashimasu ka?"
Nai shook her head. "Nihon go hanashimasen." She smiled. "Only English, French, and Thai. Although I can sometimes understand simple Japanese if it is spoken very slowly."
"I was fascinated," Kenji said in English, after sitting down opposite Nai, "by the murals depicting the founding of the temple on Doi Suthep. It is a wonderful legend a blend of history and mysticismbut as a historian, I'm
224 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
curious about two things. First, couldn't this venerable monk from Sri Lanka have known, from some religious sources outside of the kingdom of Lan-na, that there was a relic of the Buddha in that nearby abandoned pagoda? It seems unlikely to me that he would have risked his reputation otherwise. Second, it seems too perfect, too much like life imitating art, for that white elephant carrying the relic to have climbed Doi Suthep by chance and then to have expired just when he reached the peak. Are there any non-Buddhist historical sources from the fifteenth century that corroborate the story?"
Nai stared at the eager Mr. Watanabe for several seconds before replying. "Sir," she said with a wan smile, "in my two years of conducting tours of the Buddhist sites of mis region, I have never had anybody ask me either one of those questions. I certainly do not know the answers myself, but if you are interested, I can give you the name of a professor at Chiang Mai University who is extremely well versed in the Buddhist history of the kingdom of Lan-na. He is an expert on the entire time period, beginning with King Mengrai"
Their conversation was interrupted by an announcement that the cable car was now ready to accommodate passengers for the trip back to the city. Nai rose from her seat and excused herself. Kenji rejoined the rest of the group. As Nai watched him from afar, she kept recalling the intensity in his eyes. They were incredible, she was thinking. / have never seen eyes so clear and so full of curiosity.
She saw those eyes again the following Monday afternoon, when carpenters pencilshe went to the Dusit Thani Hotel in Chiang Mai for her ISA interview. She was astonished to see Kenji sitting behind a desk with the official ISA emblem on his shirt. Nai was initially flustered. "I had not looked at your documents before Saturday," Kenji said as an apology. "I promise. If I had known you were one of the applicants, I would have taken a different tour."
The interview eventually went smoothly. Kenji was extremely complimentary, both about Nai's outstanding academic record and her volunteer work with the orphanages in Lamphun and Chiang Mai. Nai was honest in admitting
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that she had not always had "an overpowering desire" to travel in space, but since she was basically "adventurous by nature" and this ISA position would also allow her to take care of her family obligations, she had applied for the assignment on Mars.
Toward the end of the interview there was a pause in the conversation. "Is that all?" Nai asked pleasantly, rising from hcarpenters pencilser chair.
"One more thing, perhaps," Kenji Watanabe said, suddenly awkward. "That is, if you're any good at interpreting dreams."
Nai smiled and sat back down. "Go on," she said.
Kenji took a deep breath. "Saturday night I dreamed I was in the jungle, somewhere near the foot of Doi SuthepI knew where I was because I could see the golden chedi at the top of my dream screen. I was rushing through the trees, trying to find my way, when I encountered a huge python sitting on a broad branch beside my head.
" 'Where are you going?' the python asked me. Tm looking for my girlfriend,' I answered.
" 'She's at the top of the mountain,' the python said.
"I broke free of the jungle, into the sunlight, and looked at the summit of Doi Suthep. My childhood sweetheart Keiko Murosawa was standing there waving down at me. I turned around and glanced back at the python.
" 'Look again,' it said.
carpenters pencils "When I looked up the mountain the second time the woman's face had changed. It was no longer Keikoit was you who was now waving to me from the top of Doi Suthep."
Kenji was silent for several seconds. "I have never had such an unusual or vivid dream. I thought perhaps"
Nai had had goose bumps on her arms while Kenji was telling the story. She had known the endingthat she, Nai Buatong, would be the woman waving from the top of the mountainbefore he had finished. Nai leaned forward in her chair. "Mr. Watanabe," she said slowly, "I hope that what I am going to say does not offend you in any way. . . ."
Nai was quiet for several seconds. "We have a famous Thai proverb," she said at length, her eyes avoiding his,
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"that says when a snake talks to you in a dream, you have found the man or woman mat you will marry."
Six weeks later I received the notice, Nai remembered. She was still sitting in the courtyard beside Queen Chama-tevi's temple in Lamphun. The package of ISA materials came three days afterward. Along with the flowers from Kenji.
Kenji himself had appeared in Lamphun the following weekend. "I'm sorry I didn't call or anything," he had apologized, "but it just didn't make sense to pursue the relationship unless you also were going to Mars."
He had proposed on Sunday afternoon and Nai had quickly accepted. They had been married in Kyoto three months later. The Watanabes had graciously paid for Nai's two sisters and three of her other Thai friends to travel to Japan for the wedding. Her mother could not come, unfortunately, for there was nobody else to look after Nai's father.
Nai took a deep bream. Her review of the recent changes in her life was now over. She was ready to begin her meditation. Thirty minutes later she was quite serene, happy and expectant about the unknown life in front of her. The sun had risen and there were other people on the temple grounds. She walked slowly around the perimeter, trying to savor her last moments in her home village.
Inside the main viharn, after an offering and the burning of incense at the altar, Nai carefully studied every panel of the paintings on the walls she had seen so many times before. The pictures told the life story of Queen Chama-tevi, her one and only heroine ever since childhood. In the seventh century the many tribes in the Lamphun area had had different cultures and had often been at war with each other. All they had in common at that particular epoch was a legend, a myth that said a young queen would arrive from the south, "borne by huge elephants," and would unite all the diverse tribes into the Haripunchai kingdom.
Chamatevi had been only twenty-three when an old soothsayer identified her to some emissaries from the north as the futcarpenters pencilsure queen of the Haripunchai. She was a young
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and beautiful princess of the Mons, the Khmer people who would later construct Angkor Wat. Chamatevi was also extremely intelligent, a rare woman of the era, and very much favored by everyone at the royal court.
The Mons were therefore stunned when she announced that she was giving up her life of leisure and plenty and heading north on a harrowing six-month journey across seven hundred kilometers of mountains, jungles, and swamps. When Chamatevi and her retinue, "borne by huge elephants," reached the verdant valley in which Lamphun lay, her future subjects immediately put aside their factional quarrels and placed the beautiful young queen on the throne. She ruled for fifty years in wisdom and justice, lifting her kingdom from obscurity into an age of social progress and artistic accomplishment.
When she was seventy years old, Chamatevi abdicated her throne and divided her kingdom in half, each ruled by one of her twin sons. The queen then announced that she was dedicating the remainder of her life to God. She entered a Buddhist monastery and gave away all of her possessions. She lived a simple, pious life in the monastery, dying at the age of ninety-nine. By then the golden age of the Haripunchai was over.
On the final wall panel inside the temple an ascetic and wizened woman is carried away to nirvana in a magnificent chariot. A younger Queen Chamatevi, radiantly beautiful beside her Buddha, sits above the chariot in the splendor of the heavens. Nai Buatong Watanabe, Martian colonist-designate, sat on her knees in the temple in Lamphun, Thailand, and offered a silent prayer to the spirit of her heroine from the distant past.
Dear Chamatevi, she said. You have watched over me for these twenty-six years. Now I am about to leave for an unknown place, much as you did when you came north to find the Haripunchai. Guide me with your wisdom and insight as I go to this new and wonderful world.
3
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rukiko was wearing a black silk shirt, white pants, and a blcarpenters pencilsack and white beret. She crossed the living room to talk to her brother. "I wish you would come, Kenji," she said. "It's going to be the largest demonstration for peace that the world has ever seen."
Kenji smiled at his younger sister. "I would like to, Yuki," he replied. "But I only have two more days before I must leave and I want to spend the time with Mother and Father."
Their mother entered the room from the opposite side. She looked harried, as usual, and was carrying a large suitcase. "Everything is now packed properly," she said. "But I still wish you would change your mind. Hiroshima is going to be a madhouse. The Asahi Shimbun says they're expecting a million visitors, almost half of them from abroad."
"Thank you, Mother," Yukiko said, reaching for the suitcase. "As you know, Satoko and I will be at the Hiroshima Prince Hotel. Now, don't worry. We will call every
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morning, before the activities begin. And I'll be home Monday afternoon."
The young woman opened the suitcase and reached inside a special compartment, pulling out a diamond bracelet and a sapphire ring. She put them both on. "Don't you think you should leave those things at home?" her mother fussed. "Remember, there will be all those foreigners. Your jewelry may be too much temptation for them."
Yukiko laughed in the uninhibited way that Kenji adored. "Mother," she said, "you're such a worrywart. All your ever think about is what bad things might happen. . . . We're going to Hiroshima for the ceremonies commemorating the three hundredth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb. Our prime minister will be mere, as well as three of the members of the Central Council of the COG. Many of the world's most famous musicians will be performing in the evenings. This will be what Father calls an enriching experienceand all you can think about is who might steal my jewelry."
"When I was young it was unheard of for two girls, not yet finished at the university, to travel around Japan unchapcarpenters pencilsroned"
"Mother, we've been through this before," Yuki interrupted. "I'm almost twenty-two years old. Next year, after I finish my degree, I'm going to live away from home, on my own, maybe even in another country. I'm no longer a child. And Satoko and I are perfectly capable of looking after one another."
Yukiko checked her watch. "I must go now," she said. "She is probably already waiting for me at the subway station."
She strode gracefully over to her mother and gave her a perfunctory kiss. Yuki shared a longer embrace with her brother.
"Be well, ani-san," she whispered in his ear. "Take care of yourself and your lovely wife on Mars. We're all very proud of you."
Kenji had never really known Yukiko very well. He was, after all, almost twelve years older than she. Yuki
230 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
had been only four when Mr. Watanabe had beecarpenters pencilsn assigned to the position of president of the American division of International Robotics. The family had moved across the Pacific to a suburb of San Francisco. Kenji had not paid much attention to his younger sister in those days. In California he had been much more interested in his new life, especially after he started at UCLA.
The elder Watanabes and Yukiko had returned to Japan hi 2232, leaving Kenji as a sophomore hi history at the university. He had had very little contact with Yuki since then. During his annual visits to his home in Kyoto, Kenji always meant to spend some private hours with Yukiko, but it never seemed to happen. Either she was too deeply involved in her own life, or his parents had scheduled too many social functions, or Kenji himself had just not left enough tune.
Kenji was vaguely sad as he stood at the door and watched Yukiko disappear in the distance. I'm leaving this planet, he thought, and yet I've never taken the time to know my own sister.
Mrs. Watanabe was talking in a monotone behind him, expressing her feeling that her life had been a failure because none of her children had any respect for her and they had alt moved away. Now her only son, who had married a woman from Thailand just to embarrass them, was going off to live on Mars and she wouldn't see him for over five years. As for her middle daughter, she and her banker husband had at least given her two grandchildren, but they were as dull and boring as their parents
"How is Fumiko?" Kenji interrupted his mother. "Will I have a chance to see her and my nieces before I leave?"
"They're coming over from Kobe for dinner tomorrow night," his mother replied. "Although I have no idea what I'm going to feed them. . . . Did you know that Tatsuo and Fumiko are not even teaching those girls how to use chopsticks? Can you imagine? A Japanese child who does not know how to use chopsticks? Is nothing sacred? We've given up our identity to become rich. I was telling your father . . ."
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Kenji excused himself from his mother's querulous monologue and sought refuge in his father's study. Framed photographs lined the walls of the room, the archives of a successful man's personal and professional life. Two of the pictures held special memories for Kenji as well. In one of the photos, he and his father were each holding on to a large trophy given by the country club to the winners in the annual father-son golf tournament. In the other, the beaming Mr. Watanabe was presenting a large medal to his son after Kenji had won first prize in all Kyoto in the high school academic competition.
What Kenji had forgotten until seeing the photographs again was that Toshio Ncarpenters pencilskamura, the son of his father's closest friend and business associate, had been the runner-up in both contests. In both pictures the young Nakamura, almost a head taller than Kenji, was wearing an intense, angry frown on his face.
That was long before all his trouble, Kenji thought. He remembered the headline, OSAKA EXECUTIVE ARRESTED, which had proclaimed four years earlier the indictment of Toshio Nakamura. The article underneath the headline had explained that Mr. Nakamura, who was at the time already a vice president in the Tomozawa Hotel Group, had been charged with very serious crimes, ranging from bribery to pandering to trafficking in human slavery. Within four months Nakamura had been convicted and sentenced to several years in detention. Kenji had been astonished. What in the world happened to Nakamura? he had wondered many times in the intervening four years.
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
232 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
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 clocarpenters pencilsse 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 tombstoneabout 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 facarpenters pencilsrewell."
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-