The Nicholas Linnear Novels (20 page)

Perhaps it was his instructor. Tanka was a stolid, solidly built man who believed a great deal in repeated movements and, it seemed, nothing else. Over and over, Nicholas was obliged to perform the same maneuver. Again and again until he felt that the sequence had been engraved upon his brain and nerve’s and muscles. It was boring work and he hated it. Hated, too, the fact that Tanka treated them as if they were children not yet ready for the adult world.

Ever and again, he would find himself looking over to the far side of the
dōjō
where Kansatsu, the
ryu
’s master, taught individual classes with a select few of the older students. He longed to be there instead of
here
on the dung heap of un-specialized exercises.

He had come to join the same
ryu
as Saigō—as had been said, through Itami’s intervention—and it galled him further that his cousin, being older and having joined the
ryu
earlier than Nicholas, was thus far ahead. This point Saigō brought up to him at every opportunity. At the
dōjō
he was openly contemptuous of Nicholas—as were many of the other students, because of his occidental aspect, feeling that bujutsu being one of the most traditional and sacred of Japanese institutions should not be open to a
gaijin
, a foreigner—and never referred to Nicholas as his cousin. However, at home it was quite another matter. He was scrupulously careful to be polite to Nicholas. For his part, Nicholas had given up trying to talk the matter out with Saigō after the third unsuccessful attempt.

Truth to tell, Saigō was a thorn in Nicholas’ side at the
dōjō.
When he could have been much help to the other, he invariably went out of his way to make everything more difficult, even going so far as to become the unofficial ringleader of the “opposition.”

One evening, the work over with and the showers taken, Nicholas was dressing when five or six of the boys came up in ones and twos until they had surrounded him.

“What are you doing here?” said one of the largest boys. “This is where we sit.”

Nicholas said nothing, continuing to dress. Outwardly he took no notice, but inwardly his heart was beating like a trip-hammer.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” said another boy. He was small and younger than the others but was seemingly emboldened by their surrounding presence. He laughed derisively. “Maybe he doesn’t understand Japanese. Do you think we’ll have to speak to him in English like they do the apes in the zoo?” Everyone laughed.

“That’s right,” the big boy said, picking up the cue. “I want an answer, ape. Tell us why you’re here in our spot, stinking it up like a spot of venereal disease.”

Nicholas stood up. “Why don’t you go off and play somewhere where your jokes will be appreciated.”

“Look, look!” cried the small boy. “The ape speaks!”

“Shut up!” said the big boy and then to Nicholas: “I don’t much care for your tone, ape. I think you’ve just said something you’re going to regret.” His right hand chopped downward toward Nicholas’ exposed neck without warning. Nicholas blocked it and then they were all crowding into him.

Through the melee he caught a glimpse of Saigō on his way out, oblivious to the raucous disturbance. He called out his name.

Saigō checked and came over. “Hold on!” he called, shouldering his way through the crowd. He shoved them back against the wall, giving Nicholas some breathing space. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s the
gaijin
,” the big boy said, his fists still clenched. “Making trouble again.”

“Oho, is that so?” Saigō said. “One against six? Hard to believe.” He shrugged, slammed the edge of his hand into Nicholas’ stomach.

Nicholas pitched forward onto his knees, his forehead touching the floor as if in prayer. He retched, tried to fill his bursting lungs with air. He gasped like a fish out of water.

“Don’t bother these people anymore, Nicholas,” Saigō said, standing over him. “Where are your manners? But what can you expect, fellows, his father’s a barbarian and his mother’s a
Chinese.
C’mon.” He led them away, leaving Nicholas alone on the floor with his pain.

She had come with her attenuated procession quite unexpectedly during the middle of the week, throwing the entire household into a state of unmitigated panic, initiated, of course, by Cheong, who felt that the house was never clean enough, the food never fine enough, her family never well dressed enough to suit Itami.

She looked like a tiny doll, Nicholas thought, a perfect porcelain thing to be put on a pedestal inside a glass case, protected from the elements. In fact, Itami needed no such exterior protection; she had a will of iron and the power to promote it, even with her husband, Satsugai.

Nicholas watched clandestinely from another room as Cheong herself performed the elaborate tea ceremony for Itami, kneeling on the tatami before a green lacquered table. She wore a traditional Japanese robe and her long gleaming hair had been put up with ivory sticks. He thought that, at that moment, she had never looked so beautiful or so regal. She was a far cry from the icy aristocracy of Itami, yet perhaps even because of that he had far more admiration for his mother. Of Itami’s kind of woman there were plenty in books of photographs he had seen of an older, prewar Japan. But oh, Cheong! There were none to touch her. She carried with her a nobility of the soul that Itami could never hope to attain, not in this life, at least. Though Itami was strong, her magnetism was nothing compared to Cheong’s power, for she wielded an inner tranquillity that was as profound as the utter stillness of a hot summer’s day, a living jewel, unique. She was, as Nicholas thought of it, of a whole cloth and this he respected and admired above all else.

He had no great desire to talk to Itami but it would have been very bad manners for him to leave the house without acknowledging her presence; his mother would be furious and, quite naturally, blame herself. This he did not want and thus, sometime later in the afternoon, he pulled open the
shoji
and stepped through.

Itami looked up. “Ah, Nicholas, I did not know that you were home.”

“Good afternoon, Aunt.”

“Excuse me a moment,” Cheong said, getting effortlessly to her feet. “The tea is cold.” For some reason she would not overtly use the servants when Itami was around. She left them alone and Nicholas began to feel uncomfortable under the mute scrutiny of Itami’s gaze.

He went over to the window, gazed out at the forest of cryptomeria and pine.

“Do you know,” said Itami, “that hidden within the forest is an ancient Shinto shrine?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, turning around. “My father told me.”

“Have you seen it?”

“Not yet.”

“And did you know, Nicholas, that within that shrine is a park filled with mosses?”

“Forty different varieties, I think, Aunt. Yes, I know of it but I am told that only the priests of the shrine may look upon it.”

“Perhaps it is not so difficult as that, Nicholas. I cannot imagine you wanting to become a priest. It does not suit you.” She rose, said unexpectedly, “How would you like to take me there? To the shrine and to the park?”

“When? Now?”

“Certainly.”

“But I thought—”

“All things may be possible, one way or another, Nicholas.” She smiled and called: “Cheong, Nicholas and I are going for a walk. We won’t be long.” She turned back to him and reached out her hand. “Come,” she said gently.

They walked silently until they came to the verge of the forest. There they turned right along the grass for perhaps two hundred meters where she abruptly guided him inward. He found that they were on a narrow but well-worn dirt track through the trees and underbrush.

“Well, Nicholas, you must tell me how you like your training at the
dōjō,”
Itami said. She walked carefully in her wooden
geta
, using the point of her lacquered paper parasol as a walking stick to help balance her on the uneven ground.

“It is very hard work, Aunt.”

“Yes.” She waved a hand as if dismissing this statement. “But this is not something that you had not anticipated.”

“No.”

“Do you enjoy all the hard work?”

He glanced up at her, wondering what she was getting at. He had absolutely no intention of telling her of the growing animosity between himself and Saigō. That would not do at all. He had not even told his parents. “At times,” he said. “I would wish to move on.” He shrugged. “I am impatient, I suppose.”

“There are times when only the impatient are rewarded, Nicholas,” she said, stepping over a tangled root. “Here, help me the last few feet, won’t you?” She gave him her arm. “Ah, there we are!”

They were in a clearing, and as they moved out from the shade of the pines, Itami lifted her parasol over her head and opened it. Her skin was as white as snow, her lips deep red, her eyes as dark as nuggets of coal.

The deep lacquered wall of the temple was awash in shimmering sunlight so that he was obliged to squint until his eyes accustomed themselves to the brightness. It was as if he were gazing at a sea of gold.

They began to walk along the crushed limestone gravel, a blue-white stippled path that completely encircled the temple; one could tread it forever, never getting closer or farther away from one’s goal.

“But you have survived,” she said softly. “That is gratifying.” They had reached the verge of the long wooden steps up to the bronze and lacquered-wood doors which stood open, shadowed, silent, hunkered down comfortably as if waiting for something or someone to arrive. They paused there. She put a hand on his shoulder, so lightly that if he had not seen it, he might not even have felt its weight there. “I had grave doubts when your father came to me, requesting I help gain entrance for you in a suitable
ryu
.” She shook her head. “I had no choice but to acquiesce and honor dictated that I make no comment of my own, but I was concerned.” She sighed. “In a way I pity you. How strange your life will be. Westerners will never fully accept you because of your oriental blood and the Japanese will despise you because of your occidental features.” Her hand lifted into the air like a butterfly and her forefinger gave him a fragile and fleeting touch on the point of one cheek. She stared at him. “Even your eyes are your father’s.” Her hand dropped to her side; it was as if she had never made the gesture. “But I am not so easily fooled.” She turned her implacable gaze away from him, said, “Let us go inside and pray.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Itami said.

And he had to agree. They stood beside a slow meandering brook which tumbled down across moss-covered rocks from a height of perhaps two meters, certainly not more. Everywhere was green, even the water, even the pebbles. To Nicholas it looked as though there were four thousand species of moss here instead of the forty.

“And peaceful,” she continued. “It’s so peaceful here. The outside world does not exist. Gone.” She folded her parasol in the shade of the overhanging cryptomeria. She inhaled deeply, her small head thrown back. “It is as if time itself has dissolved, Nicholas. As if there had been no twentieth century, no expansion, no imperialism—no war.” She closed her eyes. “No war.” He watched her closely until her eyes flew open, staring. “But there was a war.” She turned. “Shall we sit on this stone bench? Good. Perhaps the shōgun—one of the Tokugawas, even—sat just here where we are. There. It gives one a sense of history, does it not? A continuity? A feeling of belonging?” She turned to him. “But not you, I suspect. Not yet, anyway. We are alike in that respect. Oh, yes we are.” She laughed. “I see by your expression that you are surprised. You shouldn’t be. We are both outsiders, you see, forever cut off from that which we desire the most.”

“But how can that be?” Nicholas protested. “You are a Nobunaga, a member of one of Japan’s oldest and most noble houses.”

Itami smiled at him just the way a predator might and he saw her white even teeth, glistening with saliva. “Oh yes,” she breathed, “a Nobunaga, indeed. But that, like a great deal else in Japan, is merely the exterior: the gorgeous lacquered coat which hides the rotting hulk underneath.” Her face was no longer beautiful, squeezed as it was by the anguish she felt. “Listen well to me, Nicholas. Honor has fled us here; we have allowed ourselves to be corrupted by the Western barbarians. We are a despicable race now; we have done such hideous deeds. How our ancestors must shudder in their graves, how their
kami
must yearn for the final resting rather than the return to this—modern society.”

Her voice had risen somewhat and now Nicholas sat quite still beside her, allowing the air to cool. But she would not or perhaps could not rest now. It had been difficult, he suspected, for her to begin this. But, once she had overcome the initial inertia, nothing could stop her now.

“Do you know what the
zaibatsu
are, Nicholas?”

“By name only,” he said, once more uncertain of the ground she had put them on.

“Ask your father to explain the
zaibatsu
to you one day, will you? The Colonel knows a great deal about them and you should know, too.” Then, as if it explained it all, she said, “Satsugai works for one of the
zaibatsu
.”

“Which one?”

“I hate my husband, Nicholas. And, do you know”—she laughed shortly—“only your father knows why. It is so ironic. But life is ironic. It’s a devil withholding from you what you desire the most.” Her tiny hands were clenched like baby fists in her lap. “What good being a noble Nobunaga when I must forever carry with me the shame of my great-grandfather? My shame is as inescapable to me as your mixed blood is to you.

“My great-grandfather left the service of the shōgun when he was twenty-eight to become a
ronin
—do you know what that is?”

“A masterless samurai.”

“A warrior without honor, yes. A brigand, a thief. He turned mercenary, selling his strong capable arm to the highest bidder. Enraged by this unseemly and dishonorable behavior, the shōgun sent men out into the countryside to track him down, and when they finally did, they adhered to the order given by the shōgun. No
seppuku
for my great-grandfather; the shōgun would not grant him an honorable way to die. He was carrion now; no longer a
bushi.
They crucified him as they did the scum of the land.