Ohashi tapped his briefcase. "I have a device in here that reveals such
things."
She swallowed a brief surge of anger. "Well, is it really important,
Hiko?"
"Perhaps not." Ohashi took a deep, evenly controlled breath. "I did not
tell you one other thing about the Buddhist monk."
"Oh. What did you omit?"
"He predicts that we will fail--that the human race will be destroyed.
He is very old and very cynical for a monk. He thinks it is a good
thing that all human striving must eventually come to an end."
Anger and a sudden resolve flamed in her. "I don't care! I don't care
what anyone else thinks! I know that...." She allowed her voice to
trail off, put her hands to her eyes.
"You have been very distracted today," said Ohashi. "Did the talk about
your late husband disturb you?"
"I know. I'm...." She swallowed, whispered: "I had a dream about Bob
last night. We were dancing, and he was trying to tell me something
about this problem, only I couldn't hear him. Each time he started to
speak the music got louder and drowned him out."
Silence fell over the room.
Presently, Ohashi said: "The unconscious mind takes strange ways
sometimes to tell us the right answers. Perhaps we should investigate
this idea of dancing."
"Oh, Hiko! Would you help me?"
"I should consider it an honor to help you," he said.
* * * * *
It was quiet in the semi-darkness of the projection room. Francine
leaned her head against the back rest of her chair, looked across
at the stand light where Ohashi had been working. He had gone for
the films on Oriental ritual dances that had just arrived from Los
Angeles by plane. His coat was still draped across the back of his
chair, his pipe still smouldered in the ashtray on the work-table.
All around their two chairs were stacked the residue of four days'
almost continuous research: notebooks, film cans, boxes of photographs,
reference books.
She thought about Hiko Ohashi: a strange man. He was fifty and didn't
look a day over thirty. He had grown children. His wife had died of
cholera eight years ago. Francine wondered what it would be like
married to an Oriental, and she found herself thinking that he wasn't
really Oriental with his Princeton education and Occidental ways. Then
she realized that this attitude was a kind of white snobbery.
The door in the corner of the room opened softly. Ohashi came in,
closed the door. "You awake?" he whispered.