Ninja, p.28
Ninja, page 28
Itami withstood the shame stoically, as she withstood everything else in life. But Cheong was hysterical. That night, as they lay in bed, she pleaded with the Colonel to intervene. He was high up in the SCAP hierarchy, an adviser to General MacArthur himself. Surely there was some way he could help Satsugai.
“My darling,” he had said, “matters are not as simple as that. This is a highly charged time. Besides,” he added reasonably, “Satsugai may indeed be guilty of all they say he is.”
But this only served to further infuriate Cheong. “It does not matter,” she said simply. “He is family.”
“You mean therefore he is no criminal?”
“Yes.”
“Darling, you’re talking foolishness.”
“Maybe so.” Her voice was quite serious, containing the undercurrent of strength the Colonel recognized. “But I tell you that your duty is to your family and if there is a way to help Satsugai you must do it. Kakujin wa hombun wo tsukusa neba narimasen.” Everyone must do his duty.
Cheong is a most intelligent person, the Colonel thought, but she can be inordinately stubborn at times. He had known there was no way to deflect her from her purpose; knew, too, that there would be no peace for him at home until he had proved to her that he had done his best to enforce his influence.
He had fallen asleep with that thought in his mind and had awakened just before dawn with the idea blooming already.
There was a way to free Satsugai, he was quite certain of that now, but to implement the plan would involve tremendous risk. He had no doubt that he could talk the SCAP tribunal into going along with him. It was purely a matter of whether he wanted to go ahead with it.
In the end, he knew he had little choice. He already understood the precariousness of the advisory board of which he was a member and now he thought of his plan as a kind of insurance policy against the day his job should go sour.
He knew a good deal about Satsugai’s background; in fact a good deal more than Satsugai himself was aware. The Fukuoka connection was too obvious to ignore. The Genyōsha had never been an outlaw organization in Japan; records were not too difficult to unearth. The Colonel had taken a clandestine trip south to Kyūshū and had found out the truth. Satsugai was a Genyōsha leader.
At this particular point in time, that sort of information was incendiary. If it came to the attention of the SCAP tribunal, it would not matter how many incriminating documents Satsugai had destroyed in time, he would be executed.
However, the Colonel had absolutely no intention of divulging that piece of information to anyone. In any event, Satsugai’s death would serve no purpose. The society would simply elevate another member and go on with its work. That work was totally counterproductive to what the Colonel perceived as the correct course toward Japan’s future. He wanted the Genyōsha destroyed. If Satsugai were exonerated, he would be a dog on a leash—the end of which the Colonel had firm hold of. Sooner or later, Satsugai would lead the Colonel home to the center of the Genyōsha.
The Colonel turned his gaze from the weeping glass into the warmth of his study. He watched the slanted Mongol eyes of his adversary, so well trained that he could see nothing below the surface, nothing that the man did not want him to see.
It seemed a long time ago, the Colonel thought now, that I let him go and he has led me nowhere. He has known from the beginning. He knew what I wanted. I have managed to neutralize him as a force but he has otherwise stymied me. The Colonel felt a deep sadness inside himself. It was always his game to win, he thought. I was a fool to think otherwise.
That Satsugai hated him came as no surprise to the Colonel. After all, they were from opposite sides of the political spectrum. And while the Colonel understood better than any Westerner in Japan the importance of the maintenance of its traditions, its heritage, knowing that without those things the country would disintegrate, yet he also understood that the kind of traditionalism that Satsugai represented was as evil and self-serving as anything could be in Japan. This was a country of heroes, he knew, not of villains. Those were few and far between. At that moment as he stared into those baleful eyes across the warm expanse of his study, the Colonel knew that he had missed something elemental in the puzzle. There was a piece missing that was, he was convinced, the key to it all. He had believed that he had pierced Satsugai’s secret life many years ago and all his actions since then had stemmed from that assumption. He now suspected that assumption, was angry at himself for having been so easily fooled. He played with me as if I were a child, the Colonel thought furiously.
It gave him little comfort at the moment that, by his intervening, he had put Satsugai in an agonizing situation. He was in debt to the Colonel, a man he despised. It was an intolerable situation for a Japanese, yet Satsugai bore it well. I have to give him that, the Colonel thought.
My God, he thought, what is it that he has hidden from me all these years? The old warrior is shrewd yet. And then the Colonel understood what he must do. There had already been too much time wasted in an obviously fruitless plot. He had, as Satsugai himself had just said, to face reality. And the reality of this situation was that he must break the stalemate in whatever way was possible. There was only one way now.
The Colonel knew only too well that, as far as Satsugai was concerned, he was invulnerable. He could, for instance, insult Satsugai and the other would not—could not—take action against him. There was an obligation to be met. Satsugai must grin and bear it. The reverse, however, did not hold true.
For a brief moment, the Colonel was filled with a deep regret. Nicholas was still so young. There had been so little time and there were promises he had made that could not now be kept.
The Colonel stared out at the wide expanse of his property, the trees dripping with moisture, bending in the wind. He looked for the wren but it had long gone, perhaps preferring the storm to idleness. So much beauty out there, but this day he could feel no joy.
“What have you learned from the Go Rin No Sho?” Kansatsu said one day at the dōjō.
“Some of it is obviously quite useful,” Nicholas said, “though it’s mostly common sense.”
“Many consider it a revelatory work.” Kansatsu’s tone was entirely neutral, giving Nicholas no clue as to whether or not he thought it was so important. His eyes glittered like glass, quite opaque. Behind him the long afternoon slid into the muffled mauve of twilight. The sun was lost in a steep bank of haze; the resulting light, reflective and diffuse, suffused the sky, laminated the trees until the world seemed monochromatic.
“I almost wish you hadn’t given it to me.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“Well, there is something—I don’t know—disturbing about it.”
Kansatsu said nothing, merely stood waiting. Behind him, the soft clash of bokken, the exhaled breaths in unison, filled the place.
“Some might say its purity is its ultimate virtue,” Nicholas said carefully. “But, to me, it’s more of a monomania. There is something intrinsically dangerous in that.”
“Can you tell me what, precisely?”
“Exclusion.”
As if he had been thinking of this all the time, Kansatsu said, “Do you know anything of the life of Musashi?”
“Not really, no.”
“Miyamoto Musashi was born in 1584,” Kansatsu said seriously. “As you no doubt know, this was not the best of times for Japan. There was and had been terrible internal strife brought about by the constant internecine warfare waged by the numerous daimyo.
“Musashi was a ronin, little more than a brigand, really. His family came from the south, in Kyūshū, but by the age of twenty-one he had traveled north to Kyoto and there fought his first battle, decimating a family which had, years before, been responsible for his father’s demise.
“There are many, many tales told concerning Musashi and one must be most careful in reading these accounts. As is the case with most historical figures from this country’s feudal past, Musashi’s history is awash with myth. This blurring of fact and fancy is all well and good for the reader wishing simple entertainment. But for the serious student of history—and this should include all who study bujutsu—it can be a dangerous trap.”
“But myth sometimes sustains the samurai,” Nicholas said.
“Not so.” Kansatsu’s tone was emphatic. “It is history which must sustain the warrior. History and duty, Nicholas. Nothing more. Myth cannot enter into it, for myth distorts judgment. Even the senses become infected then.
“In bujutsu we deal with most serious matters. The defense of life, yes, but that is not all. Methods of dealing death occupy us daily and there is, literally, no known number to that catalog. One cannot be taught these things without the concomitant use of responsibility. And myth is the chief eroder of this responsibility. Without bushido, you see, we would be nothing more than ninja, common criminals stalking the streets. And it is so easy to slip into myth. So very easy.”
He put his hand out, indicating that Nicholas should sit. “You have come a long way,” he continued. “Your technique is flawless and your capacity for learning seems inexhaustible. However, I believe you have gone as far as you can here. There remains for you but one more hurdle and it is the most difficult. In fact, I must tell you that most students who have come this far never go any further.
“Nicholas, you must now find that hurdle within yourself and make the leap. I can no longer aid or even guide you. Either it will be there or it will not.”
“Does this mean you want me to leave the ryu?” Nicholas found that he was having difficulty swallowing.
Kansatsu shook his head. “I mean nothing of the sort. You are perfectly free to stay here for as long as you wish.”
Nicholas knew that he was missing something and, furiously, he backtracked over the conversation, trying to think what it was. Kansatsu did not seem disappointed with him. On the contrary, there was a subtle undercurrent of excitement running through him. Think! What had he missed?
Kansatsu stood up. “In lieu of a lesson today,” he said. “I’d like you to give a demonstration for the class.” He stared down at Nicholas. “Come along now.”
He went out into the center of the floor, clapped his hands together once. All sound, all motion immediately ceased and all heads turned expectantly toward him, student and sensei alike.
Kansatsu picked four students at what appeared to be at random. They were all last-year students and among the biggest physically in the ryu. All were older than Nicholas.
Kansatsu turned and beckoned to Nicholas, who walked out to stand beside him. In his right hand he carried a bokken. “Please form up around Nicholas,” Kansatsu said to the students; they moved around him in a rough circle. Kansatsu beckoned to a sensei, who gave over his bokken to the master. Kansatsu delivered this up to Nicholas. “Now,” he whispered so that only Nicholas could hear, “we shall see how well you have digested the words of the Niten ryu, Musashi’s school.”
He backed away, leaving Nicholas, a bokken in each hand, surrounded by the four students. They were all armed with single bokken. All of them had been at the ryu longer than he.
Darkness falling like a final curtain and he encircled; the stealthy pad of bare feet against polished wood; a sun orbited by four bright moons.
The dragonfly.
It was but one of the tai-sabaki, the circular movements consisting of glides and spins developed by Musashi’s Two Heavens ryu.
He had seen this and others performed to perfection by Kansatsu countless times. He had read about these in numerous texts which the sensei had given him. He had, even, practiced some on his own. But never in combat.
He must let the strategy of the others dictate his first movements, for only by the convergence of their attacks could he successfully use the tai-sabaki and only the tai-sabaki would give him a victory against four opponents.
Two came at him, one on each side, both raising their bokken in the traditional two-handed kenjutsu grip. Crying aloud, they slashed at him simultaneously.
It was the reverse butterfly. He whirled in an arc and, as he did so, his right-handed weapon swept down, slamming against one student’s thighs. At the same time, the second weapon was rising and he continued the swirling motion of his torso, sweeping the rising bokken against the second student’s windpipe. Both crashed to the ground, were replaced by the second set of adversaries. He had half a mind to use the waterwheel here but changed his mind as the vectors changed, feinting it only.
He split them, whirling still, and, his back arched, his right bokken stabbed end first into the midsection of the student on his left while his left-hand weapon blurred upward, slamming into the last student’s. His bokken clattered to the floor. It was the interlacing cross, one of the most difficult of the tai-sabaki.
He returned to stillness, his bokken poised, quivering the air as if they had a life of their own and wished now to see more action.
“Saigō,” he heard Kansatsu call. The four students quitted the field. Saigō stepped into it. He came to the ryu now less and less frequently. Nicholas did not know to which ryu he belonged; no one seemed to. But he knew that it was none of the ones in the Tokyo area.
Without warning, Saigō ran at Nicholas. His katana was still sheathed but in a blur it was out, extending outward and down toward Nicholas. Saigō had become adept at, among other things, iaijutsu, the art of the “fast draw.” The object was to incorporate the unsheathing of one’s katana into the actual thrust against an opponent. The iai sensei could kill his enemy before that person was ever aware that he had drawn his weapon.
One moment Saigō was unarmed, the next—perhaps a tenth of a second later—he had struck with lethal force. But even as he had used the iai draw Nicholas had been swiveling backward on his right foot so that he now faced Saigō with his left side only. The blow, which had been meant for Nicholas’ heart, now swept down into empty air and with his left-hand bokken Nicholas made contact., sweeping the katana’s blade up and away from him, swiveled again so that for an instant his back was to his opponent, driving the blade away still, using the other’s momentum. Then he had completed the circular sweep and his right-hand bokken slashed into Saigō’s exposed left side. The waterwheel.
He stood now with the entire class watching him, his feet spread, his bokken on either side of him, staring down at Saigō’s sprawled form. There would be, he knew, a wicked purple welt raising the flesh where he had hit the other which would stay with him for more than a week.
There was absolute silence in the room; the kind of stillness that weighs on the ears until it becomes in itself painful.
Nicholas saw nothing but the face of his cousin staring up at him. Never in his life had he seen a look which contained so much hate. Nicholas had caused him to lose face in front of the ryu; he, a graduate, felled by one of the pupils. The intensity of their silent private war was such that for a moment it appeared as if lightning might light the room.
Then Kansatsu had clapped his hands twice and the on-lookers broke up; class was out for the day.
Nicholas found that he was trembling, the muscles jumping as if out of control under the sheath of his skin. Tension and adrenalin both still coursed through him, having been released in enormous quantities by the stress situation. His mind knew that that was over but his body needed more time to accommodate itself to a return to normalcy.
He breathed deeply, in and out. It was like a shudder.
When he returned home that evening, it was not any of the servants who opened the door at his approach. Nor was it Cheong. It was, rather, Yukio.
He had not seen her in three years and then it was only one brief afternoon at a family funeral. It had been three and a half years since their incendiary meeting and he had never forgotten her.
She bowed. “Good evening, Nicholas.” She wore a dove-gray kimono with platinum-colored threads running through it vertically. It had a midnight-blue wheel-and-spoke pattern that recalled the signs of the feudal daimyo.
He bowed in return. “Good evening, Yukio.”
She stood aside for him to enter, her eyes on the floor in front of her. “You are surprised to see me.”
He put his bag down, never taking his eyes off her face. “I haven’t seen you in years.”
“Aunt Itami brought me this afternoon while you were at the dōjō. I came up to stay with them but the house is being partially remodeled, including the spare bedroom.”
He took her through the house, out the back shōji. They stepped out into the night in the Zen garden.
It was clear, just a few stray clouds rising like wisps of smoke low on the horizon. The full moon was enormous, its reflected light turning the air aqueous; everything was bathed in blue shadows. He watched the soft light limn her profile, throwing her eyes into deep shadow. She might have been a statue at the Shinto shrine hidden within the cryptomeria. They might have been underwater.
A nightingale called softly from the treetops high over their heads, and farther away came the long lonely hoot of a snow owl.
“I’ve never been to Kyoto,” he said. It was where she lived.
“You must come sometime.” Her head turned slightly. She was staring at the mountains of the rocks, raising themselves like living entities above the lawn of round stones. Her voice was like velvet in the night. They stood quite still, not touching. “It’s very beautiful.”
Not as beautiful as you, Nicholas thought. He felt his heart beating hard. “I still remember what happened.”
She turned to face him and the moonlight glinted off her pupils. “What do you mean?”
Now he felt a fool. “At the party.” He paused. “When we danced—”
She laughed a bit self-consciously. “Oh, that. I had forgotten.”
