The Miko - 02 (47 page)

Rather there was this protectiveness thing. Having her safe and with him made him feel warm and somehow more alive. He did not want to take her to bed, but as a father will with his daughter when she comes of age he longed to see her nakedness, to caress her with his eyes. It was as if the presence of her nude in front of him, that acquiescence of vulnerability, would increase his feelings, fulfill them, even.

But this night his thoughts were not of the golden girl lying like a cat curled on the seat against his hip. Rather his thoughts retraced the moment when he had first seen the Phoenix and had broken out into a cold sweat.

The ultimate purpose of a Japanese drunk such as this one was reciprocity. While it was true that the freedom the Japanese found in drunkenness allowed them to unburden their spirit, that could not be accomplished alone. A mutual unburdening, a clasping of warm hands, was what really mattered.

Nicholas knew that Sato was waiting. This was a crucial moment between them; much would depend on what Nicholas next said. If he lied now—for whatever reason, not trusting Sato being just one of them—there could never be anything between them. Despite what Sato said before about their being friends. Those were just words and the Japanese did not take much stock in words. What mattered to them most, what they truly revered above all else, was action. Because actions never lied.

For better or for worse, Nicholas suspected, he and Sato had to trust each other now. They were in deep water with nothing but an abyss below them. If there was no trust between them, then their enemies had already won.

“I think, Sato-san, that in some ways we are the same. Perhaps that is the reason why Nangi-san dislikes me. Perhaps he has already sensed this bond.

“When I was a young man…young and foolish”—the two men grinned hugely at each other—“I met a woman. She was old beyond her years; certainly beyond
my
years. But then my, er, studies precluded my early initiation into certain basic worldly matters.”

Sato, both fists against his rather flushed cheeks, was rapt; he was obviously enjoying himself immensely.

“She possessed a power I could not explain—I still can’t, though I think I understand it better. But it was as you have so eloquently said. It was as if some cruel heart had cast a spell over me. I was powerless before her.

“She was a purely sexual animal, Sato-san. I still cannot fully believe that such a creature could exist. And yet I must confess that it was precisely this quality which drew me to her. You can see that she could not possibly be a happy person. How could she? If she were not making love there was a nothingness for her. Oh, not the Void. You and I know that there is power in the Void, and an essential kind of peace that causes a completeness of the spirit.

“But Yukio’s was diminished when we were not at sexual play. I did not think on this part of her at all until one day in April we were walking through Jindaiji. I favored that place above all others in Tokyo because my father had always taken me there rather than Ueno. I suppose he liked it better because it was a botanical park.

“The
bonbori
were hung on the trees though the time of the
someiyoshino
had already passed. It was late into
hanami
, the third of the traditional days when the cherry blossoms fall. We had meant to go the day before when the petals were at their height but Yukio had felt ill and we had stayed in, watching old movies on TV.

“We walked through the winding pathways of Jindaiji on that third day, and it felt to me as if we were high on the slopes of Mount Yoshino with one hundred thousand cherry trees whispering in the wind about us.

“I had never before wept at
hanami
, though certainly my mother had many times and, once, I had seen tears in my father’s eyes. That time, as well, it had been on the third day, and I had wondered why he might be so moved since it was obvious to me that the blossoms had been more beautiful the day before.

“Now I wept, understanding what it was my father had seen that as a child I had not. Though, indeed, the
sakura
were past their peak, as they fell this day one knew that there was no tomorrow, that this was the last leavetaking, and their beauty seemed enhanced, deepened, even, by this knowledge. The ineffable sadness inherent in the moment was palpable. And for the first time I found myself understanding in a purely visceral way the mystique known as the nobility of failure which we, as Japanese, revere so highly. For I saw that the sorrow of the moment caused the
effort
to be truly heroic.”

Nicholas paused for a moment. He had become as rapt as Sato at the return of those long-ago memories. He was transported by the opportunity to unburden himself.

“Then something odd happened. I turned and looked at Yukio. Her beautiful head was raised toward the pink-white cloud of the descending blossoms. I could clearly see the line of her long neck, the hollow between the collarbones. Two pale
sakura
clung to her silk blouse as if they belonged to her.

“And I saw that somehow they were the same, these last, most precious of the cherry petals and Yukio. That she possessed that same quality that made them so special. It was not a nothingness that possessed her when she was not making love but rather a terrible, aching, unassuageable sadness that went beyond anything I had encountered.

“And all these years later I find myself wondering whether that was why I loved her, cherished her above all others. Because somehow I knew that, given time, I was the only one who could remove that sadness from her.”

“You speak of her in the past only, my friend.”

“She died in the winter of 1963. Drowned in the Straits of Shimonoseki.”

“Ah,” Sato murmured. “So young. How sad. But she is with the Heike. The
kami
of that doomed clan will care for her.” He turned his gaze downward, wiped at the remnants of spilled sakē on the lacquer with the hem of his kimono sleeve.

Sato’s large frame seemed as hulking and hunched as a brown Hokkaido bear’s. There was an unbreachable gulf between them but at the same time they were closer now than many men ever got in their lives. For they were bound by a common sadness that drew them together like blood brothers. Twined as much by what had been left unspoken as by what had been said.

“Linnear-san.” When he spoke again, his voice was soft. A hint of the paternal tinged it. “Did it ever occur to you that perhaps you would no longer have loved her had she lost that ineffable sadness? That, indeed, she herself might not have survived in this world without it? Perhaps it will help when next you think of her.”

But Nicholas was not thinking of that. He knew that the next logical step in this unburdening process was to tell Sato of Akiko’s uncanny twinness to Yukio. Indeed, he tried several times to get out the words. But nothing came. It was as if his throat had become paralyzed.

A shadow passed across the open doorway to the room and Nicholas saw Koten’s bulk for a moment. Just checking up on his boss, Nicholas thought. See that I haven’t strangled him yet, carved an ancient Chinese character into his cheek. He shuddered inwardly, returning fully to the present. For a blessed time they had both dwelled in a world free of revenge and bizarre murder.

Across from him Sato lurched to his feet. “Come, my friend.” He beckoned with a hand and, stumbling across the
tatami
, fumbled open a
fusuma
at the far end of the room.

The night breeze stole in. Following him, Nicholas found himself a step down, on a smooth pebble path that seemed luminous in the moonlight. Around him shivered dark peonies, releasing the scent of roses, clumps of iris and hollyhock. Farther away he made out the shape of chrysanthemums beside the bole of the boxwood tree.

Sato stood in the center of his garden, his chest expanding as he breathed in the fresh air. The storm had scoured away the last of the pollution, at least for the several hours left before dawn. Low in the distance, beyond the boxwood, the sky was pink and yellow, tattooed with the pigment of Shinjuku’s neon.

“Life is good, Linnear-san.” Sato’s eyes glowed, reflected in a combination of cool moonlight and the warmer light streaming out to them through the open
fusuma.
“It is a rich and varied tapestry. And I do not want to prematurely leave it.” His eyes blinked heavily in the manner of the drunk. “You are a magician, Linnear-san. You have come into our lives most fortuitously. One learns one cannot turn away from
karma
, eh?”

He hugged himself. “Tell me, Linnear-san, are you a student of history?”

“My father, the Colonel, was,” Nicholas replied, “and he taught me to be as well.”

“Then surely you remember the Emperor Go-Daigo who in the early fourteenth century sought to break away from the Hōjō regime. Soon it became clear to him that the only way to do this was to utterly destroy the ‘eastern savages,’ as he called them.

“Yet he had no clear plan and he, himself, was no military commander. He did not know what to do. Until one night he dreamt of standing near the boughs of a great spreading pine tree, more ancient than any he had ever seen before. There were three ministers of state sitting beneath the boughs, each facing a different direction. On the south side of the tree was a pile of mats. It was the seat of the highest rank.

“Two children appeared before Go-Daigo and told him that nowhere in the land would his safety be assured for long. Yet they bade him sit beneath the tree for a time in the Seat of State.

“When the Emperor awoke, he perceived that the Bodhisattvas Nikkō and Gakkō were attempting to give him a message through the dream. It occurred to him that if he put the character for ‘south’ next to the one for ‘tree’ it created ‘camphor tree.’

“Therefore he called to his Master of Discipline and asked if there were any master warriors close by with the surname of Kusunoki, ‘camphor tree.’ The priest replied that the only warrior Kusunoki that he knew of dwelled in the province of Kawachi in the west.”

“His name was Masashigi Kusunoki, who could trace his ancestral line back to Minister Lord Tachibana no Moroe,” Nicholas said. “The Emperor summoned him and Kusunoki came at once. He became Go-Daigo’s tactical commander and his staunchest supporter. He led the losing side in the Battle of Minato River in 1333, approximately where Kobe is today. At the conclusion of the terrible seven-hour battle he left the field and committed
seppuku
inside a neighboring farmhouse.”

“The nobility of failure, eh, my friend?” Sato sat down on a round stone seat with no back. “But it is incidents such as these—
men
such as Kusunoki—that make up the warp that is the tapestry of our history.”

Sato leaned forward as a bit of wind stirred the folds of his kimono. “Linnear-san, I dreamt last night of the camphorwood tree. The Bodhisattvas were not present but two figures, shrouded in shadow, were there nonetheless. Can you tell me the meaning of this dream, my friend?”

“These are indeed evil times, Sato-san,” Nicholas said carefully. Sato was giving him the opening he needed. But was there a catch? He reviewed the situation once more before continuing. “We—and I include myself because with this merger I have become a part of the
keiretsu
family and, therefore, partly responsible for its survival and prosperity—are beset from within and without.”

Sato nodded. “Yes. The wielder of the
Wu-Shing
and those who would try to wrest the secret of the T-PRAM chip away from you.”

Nicholas waited a beat. “Not quite. In fact, there are just as serious breaches which are right now threatening our merger and the continued stability of the
keiretsu.
”

Noting that Nicholas had not said,
“Your keiretsu,”
Sato said, “Then you must possess knowledge picked up on your brief trip back to America.”

“Yes.” Nicholas nodded. “To put it simply, Sato-san, there is a
muhonnin
, a traitor, within the
keiretsu.
”

Sato went very still. His eyes were steely. They had lost the unfocused glaze from the sakē. “So. And which of your competitors does this
muhonnin
work for?”

“None,” Nicholas said. “Rather the traitor is in the employ of one of
your
, er, competitors. The KGB.”

For once Nicholas could see a distinct reaction play itself across that broad Japanese countenance. Sato lost all color in his face. His hands began to shake so uncontrollably that he was obliged to lace his fingers together.

“The Russians.” His voice was a whisper. But what emotion it contained! “Yes, I see. The Russians would love to get their hands on a T-PRAM prototype.”

“Or then again,” Nicholas said, watching the older man closely, “it could be something else entirely they’re after.”

Sato shrugged his shoulders. “Such as?” Nicholas had his undivided attention.

“Kusunoki was a loyalist. As am I. His emperor asked a great deal of him yet he did it unhesitatingly.” Nicholas was beginning his bargaining. He was not about to release his last bit of information without obtaining the guarantees he needed. “The
Wu-Shing
is a matter of life and death. And as you have said, Sato-san, life is good. I, too, have no wish to see you leave it prematurely.”

He turned and opened the scarred wooden case he had brought with him. Opening the three latches he produced the
dai-katana,
his great longsword, forged almost two hundred years ago. It was thirty inches long.

When Sato saw what was inside his eyes opened wide, moving from the black lacquer scabbard to Nicholas’ face. Silently, then, he slipped off his perch to kneel on the stones before Nicholas. He bowed so low that his forehead touched the ground.

Nicholas returned the honored gesture, said, “My father named this blade
Iss-hōgai,
‘for life.’ It is, as you know, the soul of the
samurai.
”

Carefully, Nicholas picked up the sheathed blade and placed it between them. “My
kami
resides here, Sato-san.” He did not have to tell the older man why he had brought the
dai-katana
back to Japan with him; it was not for show but to use it. “And while the
Wu-Shing
is life and death, this merger between our
kobun
is no less important for the future. I beg you to—”