Linnear 03 - White Ninja (15 page)

'I'm not,' Justine said, and then bit her tongue. Too late, she realized that Nangi had been giving her a face-saving way of explaining her presence here in church. Of course he had recognized the real reason she had come, but in Japan one never spoke of real reasons. One was too busy saving face. 'That is - ' she began again, then faltered. 'Well, the truth is - ' She stopped again. One never spoke the truth in Japan. Or, if one did, it was cloaked in such a way that it could be interpreted six other ways.

'Please forgive me. I am just finishing my prayers, Mrs Linnear,' Nangi said, bowing his head.

Justine, about to say, 'Oh, I'm sorry!', clamped her jaws shut. Nangi was giving her time to collect her thoughts, to reapproach him in the proper manner, to regain the face she had lost. Justine was grateful to him.

She realized, perhaps belatedly, that her wanting to meet Nangi here was not merely a matter of convenience. She recalled how she had prayed for Nicholas at the moment when he had come out of the anaesthetic. If she did not believe in God, how could she have prayed to him? And, further, how could she have derived any measure of solace from prayer? Justine was coming to suspect that she was not the agnostic that she had all along believed herself to be. Now, beside the silent, prayerful Nangi, she bowed her head, too, asking silently for help and for strength.

By the time Nangi raised his head, Justine was prepared. 'Nangi-san,' she said, forsaking her American inclination to address friends by their first name, 'in the past, we have often not seen eye to eye.'

'I don't think this is so, Mrs Linnear.'

That damned politeness. 'This, I admit, has been mostly my fault,' Justine persevered. She knew she had to go on, that if she stopped for any reason, she might lack the courage to see this through to the end. 'I do not understand Japan. I do not understand the Japanese. I am an outsider here; a foreigner.'

'You are the wife of Nicholas Linnear,' Nangi said, as if this was all she needed to be.

Listen to me! she wanted to scream. Instead, she took a deep breath, said, 'Nangi-san, I wish to learn. I wish to work hard at an elementary level.'

Nangi seemed uncomfortable with this idea. 'This is not necessary, Mrs Linnear. You are already well thought of.'

Justine said, 'I wish, as a child must, to become recognized in this society.'

Nangi said nothing for a time. The choir practice was finished. He could hear the faint rustlings and whisperings of the children as they departed. In the nave, to one side, candles were being lit. Echoes came to him, as soft as raindrops.

'Change,' Nangi said at last, 'is often for the best if it has been preceded by thought.'

'I've thought about this a lot.'

Nangi nodded. 'Have you discussed this with your husband?'

Justine sighed inwardly. Sadness gripped her heart. 'Nicholas and I have not spoken much lately.'

Nangi's head swung around until his good eye was upon her. A Westerner would have said, Is anything wrong? Nangi said, 'I have spoken very little to Linnear-san myself. He seems somehow... different. The doctors... ?'

Now Justine sighed out loud. 'The doctor is useless in this situation. He says that Nicholas is suffering from a kind of post-operative stress syndrome. I don't believe he has grasped the nature of the situation.'

'Which is?'

'I don't know,' she confessed. 'At least, I'm not sure. But Nicholas's black mood seems to stem from his inability to practise his martial arts.' '

Nangi involuntarily sucked in his breath. Dear God, he thought, protect us now. Through his shock, he felt insinuating again that terrifying premonition of an oncoming storm, malevolent, sentient. He remembered all too well his perception of a moral twilight falling upon him and those around him. 'Are you quite certain of this, Mrs Linnear?'

'Yes,' Justine said without hesitation. 'I saw him in his workout room. He was unable to function.'

'Was there a physical impairment?'

'I don't think so, no.'

Nangi appeared to take her at her word, and now Justine could see the distress in his face.

She was about to say, What is it? Then began to think furiously. 'Are we thinking along the same lines?' she said.

'Perhaps. In the martial arts, Mrs Linnear, the mental often controls the physical. If one's mind is not properly attuned, aligned or trained, one cannot master the martial arts. This is difficult for many Westerners to comprehend.' He gave her a small smile. 'Forgive me, I mean no offence. But you said that you wished to learn. What I say is most basic, and that is part of its power.'

He paused a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. 'When one first begins martial arts training, one is more often than not given the most menial tasks to fulfil. Day in, day out the novice often feels that his life is filled with drudgery. Some students, disillusioned, give up their training. The others - the ones who will eventually go on to become sensei, masters themselves, learn patience and humility. Without these qualities, no form of martial arts skill is possible.

'But the mental aspect goes far deeper and, in Nicholas's case, it becomes everything.' Justine noted Nangi's switch to using Nicholas's Christian name, and wondered what it meant. 'You see, Mrs Linnear, your husband is one of those rare people who have mastered Aka-i-ninjutsu. He is what we call a Red Ninja. He has learned the good side of this specialized martial arts discipline.'

'You mean, there are other forms of ninjutsu?' Justine asked.

Nangi nodded. 'There is the Black Ninja, the Red Ninja's opposite side. Saigo was a Black Ninja. He practised the Kuji-kiri, the Nine-Hands-Cutting. A kind of magic.'

'Like his hypnosis on me.'

'Precisely.' Nangi found himself hoping that her basic knowledge of what Nicholas was would help her accept without fear what he had to tell her now. 'But the Kuji-kiri is only one of many dark and deadly Black ninjutsu.' Shadows fell away from Nangi's face as he turned more

fully towards her. In this light/the deep lines time and the war had etched into his face were more prominent. 'Nicholas has mastered Getsumei no michi, the Moonlit Path. It is a mental discipline that is both his gateway and his solace, his strength and his refuge. You said before that you did not believe that Nicholas had a physical disability resulting from his operation.'

Justine felt the fear crawling like a serpent in her stomach. But, too, she felt curiously empty there, as if the serpent had no substance, but instead belonged to another, less substantial world. 'What are you saying?' she whispered.

'If one is trained in Getsumei no michi,' Nangi said, 'and, one day, one reaches for it, and it is no longer there - ' He paused, as if unsure how to proceed. 'The magnitude of the loss, Mrs Linnear, would be incalculable. Consider the simultaneous loss of all your five senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch - and you will have some measure of what the loss of Getsumei no michi is like. But only a measure. It would be more. Far more.'

'I cannot imagine such a thing.' Justine was sick with shock. 'Is this what has happened to Nicholas?'

'Only he can tell us, Mrs Linnear,' Nangi said. 'But I pray with all my heart that it is not so.'

'After Lew Croaker lost his hand,' Justine said, 'I had the feeling that Nicholas was intent on putting aside his interest in ninjutsu. Isn't it possible that that phase of his life is ended?'

'It will end,' Nangi said, 'only when he is dead.' He pressed his hands together almost as if he wished again to pray. 'You must understand that ninjutsu is not something one just decides one day he will learn. Similarly, it is not a plaything that one can pick up and put down at a whim. It is certainly nothing on which one can turn one's back. Ninjutsu is, rather, an integrated way of life. Once entered, it can never be renounced.'

Nangi turned more fully towards her. 'Mrs Linnear, you no doubt have heard or seen the word michi.'

Justine nodded. 'It means a path or a journey.'

'In a sense,' Nangi said. 'Michi can also mean duty. So when one speaks of michi as a path, it is a path off which one steps only at the most extreme peril. Michi is, in effect, life's journey. Once begun, lliere can be no turning back.'

'But, surely, one is free to change one's life.'

'Oh, yes,' Nangi said. 'But always within the confines of michi.'

Justine's heart seemed made of lead. 'You mean that once Nicholas chose to be a ninja, it was for life?'

'Perhaps ninjutsu chose him, Mrs Linnear.' Nangi's face seemed sad to her. 'We must not discount that possibility. And, if this is so, then Nicholas's karma still lies ahead of him.'

'Why should this be so?, How does ninjutsu come to have so much power over a man?'

Nangi pondered how he should answer her. He decided on the truth. 'Ninjutsu is an ancient art,' he began. 'Older even than Japan itself.'

'The Japanese did not create it?'

'No. We Japanese are not good at creating. Our forte is in refining. Our language, much of our culture has its origins in China. We took the Chinese language, for instance, pared it down, made its ideograms more streamlined. That is Japanese. So it is with ninjutsu. Its origins lie somewhere in China, although, to my knowledge, no one knows precisely where it comes from or from what sensei it developed. Ninjutsu is most likely a synthesis of many ancient disciplines distilled down. Refined. Its extreme age is, for one thing, part of its power. For another, the element of mysticism involved makes it a life's work.' He showed her a small smile. 'One couldn't, to give a Western example, imagine

Merlin renouncing his work, becoming a fanner instead of a magician.'

Justine did not feel at all reassured. On the contrary, she had begun to feel chilled. 'Perhaps if we were to learn more about the origins of ninjutsu, we could understand it better. We could help Nicholas.'

'But that is impossible, Mrs Linnear. You are asking to know the unknowable.'

Justine felt as if they were all in a maze. She reasoned that there had to be a way out. 'You have mentioned Red and Black ninjutsu, whose strictures are, as you've said, more severe than even the Catholic priesthood.' Justine studied him. 'Maybe Nicholas could change from Red to - Are there other forms of ninjutsu?'

'No.' Nangi seemed about to go on, then hesitated.

Justine sensed something. 'Perhaps a student should not be given too much knowledge at once,' she said, learning from him just by watching him. 'But a wife has certain privileges a student does not.'

For a moment, Nangi seemed very old. He was thinking

that perhaps he had underestimated her, after all. By the

force of her intellect and her intuition she had come to the

heart of the matter. He nodded, and his face was once

more in shadow. 'Very well,' he said. 'I spoke the truth

when I said that there were only two forms of ninjutsu,

Red and Black. However, there is a term, Shiro Ninja.

It means White Ninja.'

The silence stretched out for so long that Justine found herself compelled to say, 'White Ninja. What is that?'

'That,' said Nangi with great pain, 'is a ninja who has lost his powers.' He did not, as yet, want to tell her all of it, that for Shiro Ninja the loss of his powers was secondary to his loss of faith. That was something to which Nangi could relate.

Justine thought she was beginning to understand

Nicholas's recent behaviour. 'Could this be why Nicholas has chosen to shut-me out?'

'It is likely,' Nangi nodded. 'For someone such as Nicholas, Shiro Ninja is his worst nightmare come true. At such a time as this, he would not want you close to him.'

'Why not? I could help him. He's so alone now, drawn into himself.'

Nangi's eyes seemed restless, roving the nave, the lines of dark wooden pews. 'Please try to understand, Mrs Linnear. He would be vulnerable to assault. Naturally, he would not want you near him at a time like this.'

'Assault?' Justine felt the serpent of fear uncoiling, slithering. 'Saigo and Akiko are dead. Who would want to harm him?'

Nangi said nothing.

Justine, her nerves at hair-trigger level, sensed something. 'What aren't you telling me? Nangi-san, please tell me. I must know. My life is disintegrating and I don't know why. Do you?'

Nangi stared at her out of his good eye, his gaze steady. 'Mrs Linnear, Shiro Ninja, White Ninja, is a wholly created state. Do you understand me? It is a subtle kind of attack. An ultimate attack by someone proficient in Kan-aka-na-ninjutsu, Black ninjutsu.'

"Then there is someone out there; another enemy. A Black Ninja sensei.'

Nangi's good eye closed for just a moment. 'Even Black Ninja sensei do not have sufficient knowledge to induce Shiro Ninja, Mrs Linnear.'

Justine could barely speak. A terror such as she hail never known before had enwrapped her in its coils. She shivered, as if with the onset of winter. 'Who then?' It was a whisper, hoarse and constricted.

'It is not to be spoken of,' Nangi said. 'It is a dorokusai, a thing reeking of slime.'

123

'What is that? For God's sake, Narigi-san, tell me!' 'Patience.' In an extraordinary gesture, Nangi put his hand briefly over hers. 'Let us find Nicholas, Mrs Linnear. Let him tell us what has happened. If he is, indeed, Shiro Ninja, then you will need to know everything.'