The day started in grayness but, by the time we've had lunch, the skies have cleared. The sun has come out and it's warm enough for us to be reminded that summer will be following the spring. After lunch, Kitty and I tackle Hargorli Park, the big square block of land accessed from the south-west corner of the grounds of the Tokugawa Nashamori.
        Because Hargorli Park contains a certain number of statues and monuments which are of historical importance, we receive, annually, a small grant from the National Archaeological Purposes Fund, which goes to the upkeep of the grounds, so the whole place is spruce and clean.
        "At play in the realms of memory," says Kitty, taking a photograph of a monument.
        The word "memory" refers us to the past. Yesterday, Kitty seemed to hint that she knows about Tanto. That she knows what happened at Hengooli Park, the public park on Ichatrak. Is she returning to that subject?
        "Memory?" I say. "What memory were you thinking of?"
        "I was quoting one of the poets," says Kitty. "A Merlercian poet. You wouldn't know her."
        Her? No, I most certainly wouldn't. The few poets that I can remember from my school days are all Nizonian poets and, what's more, they're all men. Sadowara, for example, he of the twenty-seven wives, the month-long drunks. A poem by Sadowara, meticulously memorized in my junior high school days, floats into memory. It's a cherry blossom poem.

        The cherry blossom
        Is not sufficient to fill
        The red of her white gift.

        Here the "white gift" is a poetic way of talking about a human skull. The "red" indicates that the skull is still bloody from whatever act of butchery produced it. Unfortunately, the delicate beauty of the falling cherry blossom is not cosmetically adequate, so the blood shows through.
        Momentarily, I consider sharing this poem with Kitty, then decide against it. As is common knowledge, for some reason Merlercians have trouble appreciating Nizonian poetry. They have trouble enjoying the startling juxtapositions which Nizonian poetry delights in: the smile of a cooing baby and the beak of a bloodstained vulture, for example. Or the taste of banana cake, still warm from the oven, and the bite of a rabid dog.
        As I'm thinking about it, Kitty zeroes in on another monument and takes another photograph. Then another. In fact, here in Hargorli Park Kitty has become photographically energetic. Unlike the overgrown forested area that we were struggling through earlier, Hargorli Park has scant potential for housing unpleasant surprises, and so Kitty has relaxed into tourist mode.
        As we walk to the center of the park, Kitty makes no further hints which might refer to Tanto. Instead, she is studiously silent, focused on her photography, as we stroll through the grounds to the source of the Upwelling Stream, the stream of water as green as green tea, the stream also known as Asolapateki. Bright with reflected sunlight it flows, pure and cold, from between two rocks, these being known as the keeper stones. The keeper stone on the left is formally known as Lodara Trogo, while that on the right bears the name Senchun Mabata.
        Having welled up out of the ground, the water divides around the flanks of Mashling Habakabro, the Stone of Sacrifice, a massive slab of dark green stone, which rises out of the stream to form a little island.
        "Nephrite jade, as you probably know," I say to Kitty.
        Historically, this type of gleaming dark stone was used for funerary ornaments, and to this day it has an irrevocable association with death, mourning, and the grief of departure.
        "What's the stuff on the stone?" says Kitty.
        "Stuff?" I say.
        "It's smeared with something," says Kitty.
        She steps across running green water to Mashling Habakabro, kneels down and dabs her finger on the surface of the huge rock. Her finger comes up with something reddish. And, now I focus properly, I see that, yes, the dark green stone has been smeared with something.
        "It looks like blood," says Kitty. "Isn't this where ...?"
        She lets the question trail away. But, yes, the answer is yes. Isn't this where your mother died? Yes. This is the place where my mother was killed.
        Kitty's question forces the tragedy into consciousness. But, when I remember my mother, I don't usually think of Hargorli Park. Rather, what surfaces in memory is Ishima Cemetery, white with lilies. In the usual course of things, my grief for my mother is consecrated, ceremonial and abstract, remote from the raw and bloody circumstances of her death.
        But it was intended that I should remember this park, this place, this sacrificial rock. Someone ambitiously invested effort in that. Someone poured blood here, or a red dye designed to look like blood, then sent me an anonymous letter telling me to visit my mother. Only, I quite simply didn't understand what the letter was trying to tell me.
        "Red stuff on the rock," says Kitty. "Is there something here that you're not telling me? Is someone trying to send you a message, Ken?"
        "Nobody could send me a message unless they knew I was coming here," I say.
        "They might have looked at our web site," says Kitty. "Our new corporate calendar section. Have you seen it? No? Well, it mentions that we're thinking of making an acquisition in Yendo, that we are doing preliminary investigations, that I'm going to be in Yendo to have talks and to do a physical walk."
        Although I've seen South Zeast's web site plenty of times, I've never seen the corporate calendar section. Its existence necessarily multiplies the number of people who might have guessed that I would end up in Hargorli Park.
        Actually, now I think of it, the "Go and visit your mother" message was, logically, sent by someone who did not foresee my voluntary visit to Hargorli Park. The message (which I failed to understand) surely assumed that I would need prompting to persuade me to go to Hargorli Park. The message-writer was telling me (obliquely, cryptically) that I should inspect Mashling Habakabro, the Stone of Sacrifice. Obliqueness: a Nizonian habit.
        "Think a little harder, Ken," says Kitty, persisting with the interrogation. "Who might be trying to send you a message?"
        "You can address that question to my attorney here," I say, indicating a blank space off to my right.
        I don't want to get into a discussion of threats and mystery messages. I'd prefer it if Kitty did not know that I've been threatened. I don't understand either the precise nature of the threat or the reason for it. But, contextualized by the blood on the stone -- real blood or pseudo -- the letter telling me to "Go and visit your mother" has to be a threat of some kind.
        My mother, unwisely, chose the title of prophetess. But nobody ever believed her to be the innocent reporter of the catastrophes in which she delighted. They believed, rather, that she channeled the forces of this perturbed zone in which we live, and that led to her death.
        Back then, the Yemgochong Festival, the festive ceremony of Beating the Mother-in-Law, was held once a year. By tradition, it was a way for people to blow off steam, and nobody was supposed to get badly hurt, though human dignity was sometimes damaged.
        But, on the day of my mother's death, communal paranoia got out of hand. And my mother, who, technically, at that stage was nobody's mother-in-law, since none of her children were yet married, did not survive the experience.
        The result? An official enquiry led to some arrests, to some unsatisfactory trials at which witnesses perjured themselves to protect the guilty, and to the official outlawing of the Yemgochong Festival and to the permanent estrangement of the Udamana clan from the neighborhood.
        "What would concern us," says Kitty, "would be if there were opposition from the surrounding community to the sale of the land."
        "Well, if there is," I say, "I'll let you know. But what I can tell you for a fact is that there has been no negative feedback from the community."
        Admittedly, if the land is sold and fifty-story apartment blocks start going up on the land, then that could change. But, if that should happen, community opposition or the lack of it would no longer be my problem.
        Kitty levels her camera and takes a photograph of the bloodstained mass of Mashling Habakabro. This strikes me as stunningly insensitive, as if Kitty was turning my mother's death into a tourist attraction. I almost say something about it but restrain myself.
        Then Kitty does something even more aberrant. She dips her hand into the green waters of the Upwelling Stream, cups a handful of water, brings her hand to her mouth and drinks. This is not a breach of any formal taboo. In Nizon, there is no taboo which says "Thou shalt not drink from a stream which is landmarked by a slab of rock which is stained with something which may be human blood." But Kitty's behavior still strikes me as deviant.
        I force myself to say nothing. Deliberately, I empty my mind. And a voice speaks in the emptiness:
        "Kill me like you killed him."
        Who said that? Aunt Chariot said that. In Mitodarni's office. At the time, her statement seemed like a shred of nonsense leaking out from one of the accident zones of senility. At the time, I dismissed the statement as nonsense. Yet it has stayed with me. In effect, Aunt Chariot accused me of having killed someone. And the accusation still troubles me. Even though I am innocent. And even though Aunt Chariot is dead.
        It's then that my phone rings. The caller is Valencia, and she is hysterical. I talk to her briefly, saying nothing more eloquent than "what?"
        "What is it?" asks Kitty.
        "A problem," I say. "In the house. My brother's house. There's been some kind of an accident. We'd better go have a look."