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looks too… garish for Japan.'
        Joanna sighed. 'I'm glad you said that. If you admired Nijo Castle too much, then how could I ever like you?'
        'You mean I'm supposed to find it garish?'
        'Most sensitive people do… if they understand Japanese style, that is.'
        'I thought it was a landmark.'
        'It is, historically. But it's an attraction with more appeal for tourists than for the Japanese.'
        They entered through the main gate and passed a second gate, the Kara-mon, which was richly ornamented with metalwork and elaborate wood carvings. Ahead lay a wide courtyard and then the palace itself.
        As they crossed the courtyard, Joanna said, 'Most Westerners expect ancient palaces to be massive, lavish. They're disappointed to find so few imposing monuments here -but they like Nijo Castle. Its rococo grandeur is something they can relate to. But Nijo doesn't actually represent the fundamental qualities of Japanese life and philosophy.'
        She was beginning to babble, but she couldn't stop. Over lunch and in the taxi, she had grown aware of a building sexual tension between them. She welcomed it, yet at the same time was frightened of the commitment that she might have to make. For more than ten months, she'd had no lover, and her loneliness had become as heavy as cast-iron shackles. Now she wanted Alex, wanted the pleasure of being with him, giving and taking, sharing that special tenderness, animal closeness. But if she opened herself to joy, she would only have to endure another painful separation, and that prospect made her nervous.
        Separation was inevitable - and not because he would go back to Chicago. She ended every love affair the same way: badly. She harbored a strong, inexplicable, destructive urge - no, a need - to demolish anything good and right that developed between her and any man. All of her adult life, she had wanted a permanent relationship and had sought it with quiet desperation. Yet she rebelled against marriage when it was proposed, fled from affection when it threatened to ripen into love. She worried that any would-be fiancé might have more curiosity about her when he was her husband than he'd exhibited when he was her lover; she worried that he'd probe too deeply into her past and learn the truth. The truth. The worry always swelled into fear, and the fear swiftly became debilitating, unbearable. But why? Why? She had nothing to hide. Her life story was singularly lacking in momentous events and dark secrets, just as she had told Alex. Nevertheless, she knew that if she had an affair with him, and if he began to feel that they had a future together, she would reject and alienate him with a suddenness and viciousness that would leave him stunned. And when he was gone, when she was alone, she would be crushed by the loss and unable to understand why she had treated him so cruelly. Her fear was irrational, but she knew by now that she would never conquer it.
        With Alex, she sensed the potential for a deeper relationship than she had ever known, which meant that she was walking the edge of an emotional precipice, foolishly testing her balance. Consequently, as they crossed the courtyard of Nijo Castle, she talked incessantly and filled all possible silences with trivial chatter that left no room for anything of a personal nature. She didn't think she could bear the pain of loving him and then driving him away.
        'Westerners,' she told him pedantically, 'seek constant action and excitement from morning to night, then complain about the awful pressures that deform their lives. Life here is the opposite - calm and sane. The key words of the Japanese experience, at least for most of its philosophical history, are "serenity" and "simplicity".'
        Alex grinned winningly. 'No offense meant… but judging by the hyperactive state you've been in since we left the restaurant, you're still more American than Japanese.'
        'Sorry.