The beer gardens on the rooftops of the big hotels reopened, and the air itself fell into lassitude; the kites flying over the river gradually disappeared, and with the burden of growing humidity, the sky seemed to lower itself on Kyoto like a canvas tent sagging with the weight of rainwater. The point of saturation would be reached by the middle of June, and the sky would open up in earnest to begin the tsuyu, the rainy season. To avoid the hottest part of the day, the sensei changed Sunday practice from noon to ten. No one in the dojo sweated so profusely as Ransom, who nevertheless was satisfied by his progress. He scored two more points on the Monk and managed to keep himself from getting injured. At the same time, he felt he was moving, or being moved, toward some crisis point of his own. Marilyn’s yakuza had given her an ultimatum: she would marry him in June or he would turn her over to immigration, of which the only possible result was deportation. At the U.S. consulate in Osaka, Ransom asked what could be done.
