I was, it seemed, standing in my garden, gazing through shifting silvery curtains of mist at the muted yellow of a flowering forsythia. Somehow I knew it was only a little past dawn. I might have gone inside after a moment had I not heard the garden gate behind me swinging on its steel hinges and then the soft click of its latch. When I turned to look, I could see nothing through the haze; but after a moment a small figure appeared, at first like a wavering phantom, then assuming the solid, mottled, familiar form of my dog, Roland. Dangling from his mouth by a thick silken cord was what after some seconds I recognized as a Japanese koto, though one of unusually small design. On seeing me, he started back slightly, furrowed his brow, then strolled over to the low wooden deck of the house and gently set the instrument down. Returning, he stared at me thoughtfully and said (in a voice curiously similar to Laurence Harvey’s), “You never rise this early. Is all well?”
“Yes,” I said, in an unexpectedly hoarse voice, “I think so. I don’t recall . . .”
But now Roland was energetically sniffing at my left hand.
“Honestly,” I said, “nothing’s wrong.”
He sighed, gazed intently upward into my eyes for a long, uncertain moment, and then said, “Very well.” Then he began to turn away.
“Wait,” I said. “Where have you been, with . . . that?” I pointed at the koto.
Roland smiled and sat down upon his haunches. “I was afraid you’d ask.” He shrugged. “It’s something I occasionally do. I spent the night in the hall of the local daimyo performing passages from the Heike Monogatari . . . the battle of Dan-no-ura . . . and . . .”—he lowered his eyes somewhat bashfully—“declaiming some of my own verse.”
“There’s a local daimyo?” I began.
He raised his snout, his head at a quizzical tilt. “Of course. Who do you think makes sure the local peasantry plants enough glutinous rice for wine . . . or protects them from the depredations of the yakuza?”
