Eventually their taxi pulled into a narrow side street, edging past a few women carrying small bundles of groceries bound in scarves, then easing to a stop before the ramshackle bamboo gates of a place that seemed abandoned to foliage and vines.
The driver helped carry their bags in through the gates and up the rocky, hedge-lined pathway leading to a wooden veranda. Ahead was a thatch-roofed, weathered house shrouded by towering elms. As they approached, an elderly woman in a dark kimono emerged from the recesses of the interior. She sang out a welcome, bowed deeply, and produced two pairs of leather slippers with an air of ritual solemnity. They were expected.
Off went the street shoes, on went the slippers as they melted into a world that would have been perfectly natural four centuries ago. When they passed the "lobby"—off to the side, tatami-floored, with a few ancient screens scattered about—Tam noticed that there appeared to be no "desk." But there was also no "check in"; the proprietress clearly knew the honorable Asano-san. She also must have known he was with MITI, since her honorifics soared into the upper reaches of politeness as she guided them along the interior hallway.
Tam realized they were in a traditional Japanese inn, a ryokan, surely the last vestige of classical Japan. As they moved out onto another veranda, this one circling a central garden and pond, the place appeared to be totally empty. The woodland vista in the center hinted of infinity, with stone paths and a wide pool dotted with shapely rocks. Although there were a dozen or so closed doors along the wooden platform, the inn seemed to be there solely for them. In the cool dusk clumps of willows across the pond masked the view of the other side, furthering the illusion that they had the place all to themselves. It couldn't be true, though, since chambermaids in kimono darted here and there balancing lacquered dinner trays.
When they reached the end of the veranda, their hostess paused before a set of shoji screens, knelt, and pushed aside the rice-paper covered frames to reveal a room entirely bare except for a low lacquer table. Well, not quite: on the back wall was the traditional picture alcove, tokonoma, in which a seventeenth-century ink-wash scroll hung above a weathered vase holding three spare blossoms. Their room had no keys, no clocks, no television. It was a cocoon for the spirit, a place of textured woods, crisp tatami, lacquer, and rice-paper.
The woman deposited their bags on the black-bordered tatami, consulted briefly with Ken concerning dinner, then backed, bowing, out of the room, leaving them alone together in another time.
"Ken, this is perfect. I needed someplace like this."
"We both did." He embraced her. "They're running our tub now. Afterward I have another surprise for you."
"What?"
"Allow me some mystery."