John Rain 08: Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler Page A

through the sliding-glass doors and into the men’s bathing area. Instantly I was enveloped by steam and heat and the floral smell of soap. High on one wall was the requisite mural of Mount Fuji, practically a national law. There was a lot of light—not just from fixtures, but from a pair of large windows along the high ceiling and a skylight overhead. About twenty men of all ages were seated on short stools before the spigots lining the walls, some shaving, some scrubbing, some dowsing themselves with hot water from wooden buckets. One man was helping a little boy into the tub, and for a moment I was struck by a memory of my own father, introducing me to the neighborhood sentō when I was no longer young enough to be bathed in the kitchen sink. I remembered that day clearly, the steam and the soap and the sight of all those unselfconsciously naked people. It had felt like a rite of passage, and my parents had been sure to mark it as such, with my mother fussing afterward about how grown-up I was now, and even my ordinarily distant father, perhaps pressed by some memories of his own, smiling with uncharacteristic sentiment, and for the second time that day I sagged under the paradoxical weight of memories of people and things that no longer were.
    I shook off the feeling and walked to the back, where the tubs were located. There were four of them, forming an L along two walls: the main tub, with a cold plunge pool next to it, comprising the long end of the L; and two mineral baths, with signs advertising their benefits for muscle aches and a variety of skin conditions, forming the short end. The main bath was at the base of the L, between the cold pool and the mineral tubs, and was easily twice the size of the other three combined.
    I went through another sliding door and found myself in an enclosed outdoor garden with another tub at the center, this one done in natural stone in keeping with the setting. A ronteburo , unusual for a sentō , and, as I’d suspected, probably part of the appeal for people from outside the neighborhood. For the moment, the ronteburo was empty, but overall, the place was pretty crowded. So while a steady flow of strangers would allow me to spend some time here to reconnoiter, the same crowds would pose a significant challenge when it came time to act. But one thing at a time.
    I went back inside. Japanese bathing etiquette always involves extensive, even elaborate soaping and scrubbing and rinsing before entering the tub, but I went at it even beyond the already strict requirements, wanting to extend my stay as long as I could without becoming conspicuous. While I painstakingly went over every inch of my body with the soapy washcloth, I considered. I thought there was at least a decent chance I could acquire Ozawa here. If so, it wouldn’t be hard to head out shortly before he did, and come up from behind as he headed home. But how was I going to make something like that look natural? I considered a judo strangle, but immediately rejected it. My strangles were pretty good, but I knew I had nowhere near the finesse to put in a fatal one and leave no visible damage to the throat.
    I scrubbed a second time, then sluiced the water off myself with a bucket, refilling the bucket with increasingly scalding water each time. My father had taught me the trick to easing into the molten waters of the sentō that very first time he’d taken me, and I’d never forgotten. You can’t wash with tepid water and then get right into the bath, he’d explained—the trick is to increase the temperature of the wash water until you can barely stand it. At that point, your body is acclimated, and you can get right into the bath. I did as he had taught me, and when I was done, my skin sunburn-red, I stood, walked over, and eased into the steaming waters of the large hot bath.
    Within minutes, my muscles had been reduced to jelly by the pulverizing heat. As the tension flowed out of my body, I felt the anxiety about