The Miko - 02 (32 page)

He was about to open his mouth to say something—anything to break the taut, painful thread of silence—when there came a sharp rapping on the door. Obā-chama’s eyes cleared and, bowing, she excused herself.

Nangi sat silently without turning around. His back was to the front door; all he could hear was the soft murmur of voices, a short silence, the murmuring beginning again. Then the door closed softly, and he heard nothing until Obā-chama returned to his view.

She sat back down opposite him. Her head was slightly bowed, throwing her eyes into shadow. “I have had news of Gōtarō-chan.” Her voice was like a wisp of smoke, gently drifting, a shell only, transparent and empty within. “He will not be coming home.”

Perhaps she always spoke of death thus with a poet’s poignancy, but Nangi suspected not. Gōtarō had been special to her as, in the brief but incredibly intense time Nangi had known him, Gōtarō had been special to him.

The space between them danced with dust motes twisting in the heat of the sunlight. Their false life only accentuated the emptiness there.

The thin sounds of the uncaring traffic outside came to him remote as the memories brought to life by a faded photograph. An era was passing before them, a slow and heavy cortege filled with black roses. The scent of the past was everywhere, with only the dark uncertainty of the unknowable future to keep it company.

A kind of despair seeped slowly from Obā-chama though she bravely strove to be resolute and inwardly calm.

The helplessness of his situation affected Nangi profoundly as they sat facing each other. Her tissue-paper face had been crumpled by
karma,
and his heart ached with the burden of her newest loss, one in a string of bitter beads.

Then what came into his mind was a poem—not quite a
haiku
but exquisitely moving—by Chiyo, the eighteenth-century poet, considered the greatest of all of Japan’s female poets. It was what she wrote after the death of her small son, notable for what it did not say as well as what it expressed.

He spoke it now: “‘The dragonfly hunter—today, what place has he / got to, I wonder….”

Of a sudden, they were both weeping and Obā-chama, appalled at her lack of good manners, turned quickly away so that he could see only her thin shoulders moving. And above, her bowed gray head.

After a time, he said quietly, “Obā-chama, where is Seiichi-san? He should be here with you.”

Her eyes scored the nap of the
tatami,
searching perhaps for imperfections. She would not raise them. Then, her body moved, as if she were steeling herself to speak. “He is on his pilgrimage. To the mausoleum of the Tokugawa in Nikko Park.”

Nangi bowed. “Then with your permission, Obā-chama, I will go and fetch him. His place is here; it is a time for family.”

Now the old woman raised her head and Nangi became aware of the tiny nerve tremor that kept it in constant motion. “I would be most…grateful to have my other grandson beside me again.” The corners of her eyes were diamond bright with the hint of tears she was holding back with a supreme effort of will.

Nangi thought it was time he left her to the privacy of her grief. He bowed to her formally, thanking her for her hospitality in these evil times, and with some difficulty rose to leave.

“Tanzan-san.” It was the first time she had spoken his name. “When you return with Seiichi”—her head was held very straight; a tendril of hair swept down across one ear, feathering with her minute tremble—“you will stay here with us.” Her voice was firm. “Every young man needs a home to return to.”

The deep green of the cryptomeria occluded the gray pall that still hovered over burnt-out Tokyo where legions of civilians still picked through the massive tons of rubble and blackened skeletons of the Red Night, urban farmers with ash-covered rakes, unearthing a harvest of despair.

All that remained of the terrible winds of the week before were soft, gusting breezes that bent the tops of the cryptomeria and set up a fibrous rustling whose confluence with the natural buzz of the insects brought about a harmoniousness for which this park was noted.

Nangi crossed to the far side of the stream via a stone footbridge and took a winding hillside path through dense foliage that would lead him to the gold-encrusted Yomei Gate, and the tomb of the Tokugawa. He had not told Obā-chama because the timing had not been right but he, too, had spent many happy hours during his schooldays lost in deep reverie at the verge of this final resting place of much that had made Japan great.

That the Shōgunate of Ieyasu Tokugawa began the history of modern Japan Nangi had absolutely no doubt—but it was only in the difficult and feverish years ahead that he was to come to fully appreciate the insight he had forged for himself. This Shōgun was the first of a line stretching over two hundred years who tamed the myriad feuding
daimyō
, the only one with enough strength and cunning to bend these powerful regional lords to his will.

In so doing, of course, Ieyasu created the great two-hundred-year peace and forever changed the path upon which Japan would walk. For in effect he destroyed the
samurai.
Warriors have no place in peacetime for there is nothing for them to do. And in this interregnum the
samurai
metamorphosed slowly into bureaucrats, working in administrative functions, thus becoming no more than a “service nobility.”

Nangi had heard it often said in school, where astute minds young enough not to have yet been entirely shorn of the objective view which age and full participation in the system would cut from them, that Japanese government was built on the separation of power and authority.

To understand this Nangi had had to return to his studies of history, reading in areas his professors had apparently ignored in their zeal to complete the semesters’ curricula. There, in his books, he found the historical and political imperatives that were his answers.

The twin feudal powers of the Choshu and Satsuma families at last brought to an end the Tokugawa Shōgunate. But the resultant governmental corruption caused such a public outcry that they, in turn, were overthrown by the Meiji oligarchs. And the Restoration began.

What this cabal of leaders arranged was the kind of government similar to that in Bismarck’s Germany. That many of these leaders had strong ties into that German government seems partly the answer as to why they chose that particular system. The other reason was that they wished to clandestinely retain their control of a government which, on the surface at least, would appear responsive to the needs of the public at large.

Toward this end they set about creating what they termed a non-political civil bureaucracy. It seems ironic that the Meiji oligarchs, so fearful of the traditional
samurai
that they officially abolished the class, were obliged to seek out for administrators of their newly coined bureaucracy the remnants of the very class they hated.

But it was their determination to have this vast and powerful buffer unit of bureaucrats in place before 1890 when the National Diet, the new parliament, would open and candidates from political parties began campaigning for public support and power.

The Bismarckian system of “monarchic constitutionalism” also served the Meiji oligarchs well since it made the prime minister and the army responsible not to parliament but to the monarch. The interim result was a relatively weak and ineffectual Diet and a powerful bureaucracy laced with supporters of the Meiji oligarchs. Thus was the will of the people carried out.

And yet for all its subterfuge and illicit lines of power, the growth of the non-political bureaucracy as the center of the government found great favor among the Japanese, for the corrosive memory of the privilege accorded the two families, Satsuma and Choshu, still burned like a fire within them. What they appreciated about the formation of the bureaucracy was that it was open to all men who had trained diligently and well and who displayed the proper aptitude and fortitude in scoring highly in examinations which could not be more impersonal and thus impartial.

And yet the ultimate result was never perhaps anticipated by the Meiji oligarchs. For with the solidification of the bureaucracy’s power as the center of the new government, and with, at last, the passing of the last of the oligarchs, the true power within the government devolved entirely into bureaucratic hands both civilian and, just as importantly, military.

And all this, truly, was the legacy of the Tokugawa. An important lesson, especially for a young man wandering the land of a soon-to-be-defeated country who must think toward the highly uncertain and volatile future.

Change was coming, and the sight of the Tokugawa mausoleum breaking through the stairway of trees between which he had been walking brought home to Nangi just how much he wanted to be part of that change. Because the alternative was too horrendous to contemplate: to be swallowed whole in the inevitable war crimes tribunal of the occupation forces.

Nangi paused, looked quickly around him. He appeared to be alone. He turned and stepped off the path, moving quietly into the protection of the trees. In a tiny clearing he knelt down and, removing his army uniform from the small bag he was carrying that contained all his possessions, he rolled it into a rough ball and lit a match to it. It took some time until it was all gone. At last he stood creakily and ground the ashes into gray dust.

That done, he returned to the path to search out Seiichi Sato and bring him home.

Seiichi was not at all like his fallen brother. For one thing, he lacked the wild sense of humor that made Gōtarō so easy to be with. For another, he was not a Christian. Seiichi was a swiftly maturing boy with a serious outlook on life.

On the other hand, Nangi found him to be supremely quick witted and a man—it was impossible to think of him as a boy—open to new and unusual ways of thinking. Primarily because of this quality—fully as unusual as wild, gusting humor—the two formed a solid core of confidence and trust in and for one another.

As for Seiichi, he took the news of his older brother’s death well. Nangi had first caught sight of him as a black silhouette within the gloom of the mausoleum doorway. He had introduced himself and they had spoken for a long time.

Then, in the intuitive way some younger people have, Seiichi’s eyes shifted and he said, “You have come to tell me Gōtarō-san has been killed.”

“He died a
samurai
’s death,” Nangi said.

Seiichi looked at him peculiarly. “That might not have made him as happy as it makes me.”

“He was Japanese, after all,” Nangi said. “His…faith in another God did not enter into it at all.” He turned as if changing the subject. “He saved my life, you know.”

Ultimately what bound them was their mutual desire not to die at war’s end. Neither were soldiers of the Emperor; they certainly did not think of themselves as
kamikaze,
falling like cherry petals on the third day of their brief bloom. Yet, for all that, they were patriots. And it was this very love of country which spurred them on. Nangi was farsighted enough to want to see Japan rise from the rubble this stupid and ineptly fought war had reduced it to; Seiichi was young enough to still believe in the idealism of the world. Together, Nangi thought, they just might be unbeatable.

To this end, he began Seiichi’s education in
kanryōdō,
the modern Japanese’s
bushido
, the way of the bureaucrat, while Seiichi was finishing his last year at Kyoto University. Nangi thought that he would need a particularly salient example to hook Seiichi into this new way of thinking. He asked Seiichi if he knew the best route to political power in Japan.

Seiichi shrugged his shoulders. “The National Diet, of course,” he said with the absolute surety of youth. “Isn’t that where all politicians gain their experience?”

Nangi shook his head. “Listen to me, Seiichi-san: not one of Tōjō’s cabinet ministers ever served in the parliament. All were former bureaucrats. Any time you feel your interest flagging, I urge you to remember that.”

“But I have no desire to become a civil servant,” Seiichi complained. “And I can’t understand your desire to become one.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase
tennō no kanri
? No? It is the definition of the Japanese bureaucrat, an official of the Emperor. Imperial appointment gives to them the status of
kan,
a word of Chinese origin that meant, in those faraway days, the home of a mandarin who presided over a city.
Kan
is power, Seiichi, believe me. And no matter what the American occupation forces do to us, in the end,
kan
will rule Japan and make it great once again.”

Of course history proved the veracity of Nangi’s words. Though General Mac Arthur’s SCAP, the occupation authorities, changed the bureaucracy drastically from 1945 onward for seven years, they did not and indeed could not eliminate it. In fact, they unwittingly strengthened one area: the economic ministries.

SCAP did away with the military completely. This they were compelled to do, but not understanding the fundamental nature of Japanese government, they failed to see the ramifications of their action. For the military had been the chief rival of the economic ministries.

But now the war crimes tribunal set its sights further afield and began calling in certain influential members of the
zaibatsu,
the great family-run industrial combines whose might had propelled Japan into the war in the first place.

With the transformation of the
zaibatsu
and the inevitable weakening of their influence as the tribunal’s dedicated officers sifted through the rosters seeking out more war criminals in hiding, a power vacuum was created, into which the economic ministries again stepped.

Shortly after the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was purged of forty-two members—among the lowest percentage found within the government—Tanzan Nangi achieved a position in
kōsan kyoku,
the Minerals Bureau. This was in June of 1946 and Shinzo Okuda, the current vice-minister, was glad to have him. Nangi had gone to the right schools and, just as importantly, came to the ministry without taint as far as the war was concerned. He had never achieved a high enough rank or the kind of notoriety for him to have come under the scrutiny of the SCAP tribunal. He had also worked at the Industrial Facilities Corporation, a bureaucratic management foundation or
eidan
, shortly before the war broke out and he was called into service.