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The day before Kishimoto Nangaku died-that is, on October 19-Kitami Jikai came by to see him, arriving just after Nangaku's wife, Hideko, had stepped out on some errands. Jikai was the head priest at the Kohôan, which was located at the foot of Mt. Kinugasa. He said he had been passing by, and wanted to drop in to express his concern. He was wearing a short black robe over his kimono and had a white silk band draped around his neck. Pleats of purple cloth were peeking out from beneath the hems of his robes. It appeared as though he was on his way home from a memorial service somewhere.

A maid Jikai recognized by sight met him at the entryway. He peppered her with questions as he proceeded to make his way straight into the house. "How're things? How's he doing?" he asked. Behind him was a short acolyte, who couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. The boy shuffled hurriedly after the priest.

The Kishimoto household was among the benefactors of the Kohôan. Since Nangaku was an honorary representative of the temple's patrons, it was not at all unusual for Jikai to barge into the inner recesses of his home in such a familiar, unceremonious way. Nevertheless, it discomfited Sasai Nansô, the most senior of the disciples, who was moistening his master's lips with a strip of dampened cotton when he arrived. The doctor had already given up and left, and now here was the priest of the family temple. Nansô considered it a bad omen, and the dour expression he wore made his feelings evident to everyone. Still, when the maid withdrew to fetch tea and sweets, Jikai breezed past the artist's disciples, seemingly oblivious to their consternation, and headed straight for the patient's bedside. Peering into Nangaku's sleeping face, he repeated his questions: "How're things? How're you doing?"

Nangaku had been lying like a toppled, decayed tree, a silk quilt pulled up to his chin, but Jikai's voice was so loud that he could feel it reverberate off the low ceiling and beat against his ears. With a slight flutter of his lids, he half-opened his eyes and, in a voice wracked with pain, said, "Is that you, Reverend?"

His disciples were startled. Since morning, Nansô had repeatedly called out his master's name but to no reply. Now, Nangaku opened his parched lips ever so slightly and told the priest in a raspy voice, "I knew I could count on you to come."

"I hate performing this duty," Jikai replied. Lowering his stout shoulders and leaning closer into Nangaku's face, he added haughtily, "You're the one person I never wanted to call on for this purpose."

Only then did the priest seem to register the presence of Nansô and the three other disciples. Glancing about at them arranged in the large, ten-tatami-mat room, he burst into laughter. Then he abruptly called out to the young acolyte. "Hey, Jinen! Hey!"

Moments earlier, the boy had stepped out onto the veranda overlooking the garden and was just then gazing intently at a stone lantern entwined with ivy in its autumn colors. Hearing his name, his shoulders stiffened. He turned toward the priest and peered into the room. He was a dramatically odd-looking boy, his shaven head emphasizing the enormity of his crown, and his protruding forehead and deep-set eyes making his face appear small and narrow.

"Come over here!" Jikai called again, motioning with his hand.

The young acolyte stepped forward quietly, taking care to avoid the cloth trim of the tatami. He shuffled his feet, sliding them over the floor.

"His name's Jinen," Jikai told Nangaku. "He just went through his ordination rites yesterday. He's good at keeping the garden tidy, too. When you get better, you must come to the temple to relax."

Could this be the reason Jikai had dropped by? Whenever a novice is ordained, it is customary for Zen temples to announce the event to the representatives of their patrons. The priest appeared to be introducing the boy he had chosen as his assistant. Watching the boy in profile, the disciple Nansô thought he had certainly picked a rather glum-looking lad.

After a few moments, Jikai got up and began retracing his steps away from the sickbed. Before the priest had reached the veranda, Nangaku abruptly stirred again. "Look after Sato, Reverend," he said in a hoarse whisper. "She belongs at the temple."

No sooner had he uttered these words than Nangaku was overtaken by a violent fit of coughing. Nansô quickly returned to his side and resumed moistening his master's lips with the dampened cloth.

The priest glanced back to survey the scene. Bowing deeply, he saw that Nangaku's complexion was already a pale greenish shade. "Take care of yourself," he called. Patting his acolyte once on the head, he quickly withdrew from the Kishimoto house. His visit had lasted no more than four or five minutes.

Nangaku did not say another word until the following day. At times he snored loudly or gasped painfully, and at other times he was quiet, as though his breathing had suddenly stopped. When he was on the verge of taking his final breath, he parted his lips ever so slightly. Because it appeared he wanted to say something, his disciples leaned in and listened closely. What they heard was "Sato."

All at once, Nangaku's disciples looked up worriedly toward Hideko. Sitting at the head of her husband's bed, she was sobbing, her face pressed into the sleeve of her kimono. It appeared she had not heard.

This "Sato" who consumed Nangaku's last thoughts was Kirihara Satoko, whom he had taken from her job at a small restaurant in Kiya-machi and set up on the second floor of a flower shop in Demachi, Kamigyô Ward. In his final years, the artist had visited her so often that even his disciples and the priest Jikai knew all about their relationship. And while she was now thirty- two and no longer a young woman, Satoko was the type favored by men-petite and buxom, with an hourglass figure and delicate features. Why, then, would Nangaku think it necessary to ask the priest to look after her?

When Kishimoto Nangaku was in good health, he had traveled as far as China and Europe for his work. Yet when it came to creating those masterpieces on which he lavished his greatest care, it was his custom to borrow the guest quarters at the Kohôan and work there. The artist was drawn to the area around the temple because of the groves of deciduous trees that skirted the base of Mt. Kinugasa. He used the Kohôan's guestroom as his atelier in his later years. Even as many as ten years before his death, he had spent an entire summer in residence at the temple without doing anything at all. He had brought Satoko to live with him during that time.

Nangaku had painted wild geese on the four-panel fusuma doors in the corridor running from the cedar entryway of the head priest's residence to the main hall, and on the doors of the inner sanctum and the two chambers adjoining it to the left and right. Strolling the premises with Satoko on his arm, he would gesture to them and say, "These are the geese I painted."

The panels of the fusuma had been painted in ink and gold dust. The setting was an ancient pine with enormous roots stretching its great branches out over a pond. Each of the needle-like leaves had been drawn in exquisite detail. A flock of wild geese, some perching, some flapping their wings, was pictured settling in the lower branches. As one bird was about to fly off, its white-feathered belly flashing in the evening sky, another nestled motionlessly on a branch, appearing as if it were part of a knot on the trunk of the pine. There were goslings. And there were chicks with their mouths open to receive food from their mothers. Although every one of these countless birds had been painted in monochrome ink, no two of them were alike. One could almost hear the sound of the brush through which the artist had focused his passion, rendering each with the greatest care. The geese seemed to be alive.

Nangaku had poured his heart and soul into these panels, completing them in the spring two years before that summer he spent with Satoko at the Kohôan. Indeed, they were so brilliantly executed that the artist himself could not withhold his admiration. Gazing upon them after a night of heavy drinking, he told Satoko, "After I'm dead and gone, this place will come to be known as 'The Temple of the Wild Geese,' and the number of famous places in western Kyoto will increase by one."

"Yes, you can almost hear their cries!" Satoko whispered her ecstatic agreement. Standing in the dusky light of the main hall, Nangaku beamed and caressed her neck.

Was it because Nangaku had been unable to forget the events of that summer that he had entrusted Satoko to the care of the priest?

In fact, the three of them had often passed the time together drinking in the temple's guest quarters. Although Jikai was ten years younger than Nangaku, his face and body suggested he was of equal virility. Their similar personalities meant he also got along well with Satoko.

"Can't you please remove the hair from your ears, Reverend?" a drunken Satoko had once asked, peering at him through heavily weighted lids. Jikai had laughed and studied his two companions, but a flash of sexual desire had settled in his eyes. Knowing full well that the priest was attracted to her, Satoko often remarked to Nangaku, "Jikai's eyes are frightening."

Indeed, Jikai and Nangaku shared identical tastes. When it came to women and drink, they were in total agreement. Perhaps for this reason, Nangaku always seemed dissatisfied that Jikai had never married. The Kohôan held special status as a branch temple within the Tôzenji sect; and because it was physically separate from the grounds of the main temple, keeping a wife would not have attracted undue attention. In any case, it was an open secret that all the branch temples-even those located on the main temple's grounds-kept a woman in the head priest's residence. Nangaku had told Jikai to his face that a priest with sexual urges had no reason to maintain his bachelorhood. But Jikai had just laughed and ignored him. When Nangaku pressed him on the matter, he replied, "To cut off one's hair is to sever the roots of attachment. That is the meaning of a Zen priest's tonsure."