Sensei (15 page)

I felt like I had been struck. But part of me still struggled against the realization. I looked from Micky to Dee and back again. "There's got to be some other explanation," I began.

Micky began to intone the word "bullshit," but Dee shushed him.

"He wouldn't keep something like this from me___He knew I

was working with the police...." I started out gamely but quickly ran out of things to say.

"Maybe, Connor." My brother sounded sad, as if he were giving someone bad news. Which, in a way, he was. "But maybe not."

Micky looked down and shuffled some papers around in a rare moment of delicacy. A photocopy of a handwritten note in Japanese caught my eye. An English translation was penciled in between the lines.

"What's that?" I said quickly.

"The note that Ronin left for Yamashita at Samurai House. It says, "Please meet me' and gives directions." My brother handed it to me.

I took a deep breath and asked, "Where'd the translation come from, Mick?" I didn't want to hear the answer.

"Yamashita. Why?" Micky asked very gently. His manner had the soft quietness of a hunter.

"The translation is... wrong," I sputtered. "It says, "I look forward to meeting you again." And it's signed with a name. Tomita."

Micky silently mouthed the name and wrote it down. I stood there with the paper clutched in my hand and felt the heat rise in my face. "I can't believe it," I finally said. "He knew... all along..."

My brother and his wife sat and said nothing. After that, I didn't either. We all knew where this was heading.

Yamashita's dojo was quiet, its entrance as flat and unwelcoming as a hostile face. Micky was right next to me. He still wasn't firing on all cylinders, but you could almost feel the anticipation boiling up in him. I pushed the buzzer but got no answer. There had been no activities planned at the school since the attack on Art. But as a senior student I have a key, so I let us in. It's not unusual. Yamashita encourages us to train relentlessly. Class doesn't need to be in session.

Anger clouds perception. I wasn't focusing on the dim, empty space of the training floor as I entered. I never even sensed the presence behind the door until the snout of a pistol was shoved in my face. The guy holding it took a good look at us and relaxed. I wish I could say the same.

My brother had gone very still. Micky's eyes were narrowed down into slits and he looked at the man with the gun like he was imprinting him on his memory for later. Because I could tell that there would be a later.

The man was a street thug, a gang member of some sort. He had the look written all over him. A young, Asian face, with flat brown eyes. His hair was cut short on the side and spiked on top, with blond highlights. His gun was nicely chromed, completing the with-it, happening look.

He had relaxed slightly, but he never took his eyes off us. And the gun didn't waiver.

"Visitor!" he called upstairs.

Two men appeared at the landing above the training space.

"Please, Mori-san," I heard Yamashita say, then his voice dropped to a whisper and I lost it.

Another voice called out an order. The gun came down. We went up.

I had generated a real head of steam on my way down to the dojo. But the experience of having a gun shoved in my face knocked me off balance mentally. At any other time, I knew if I mentioned this to my teacher, he would nod and reply that emotion does this sort of thing. But I wasn't in the mood for any of his mystical advice. I wanted answers to something much more pressing.

Even someone not as skilled as my teacher would have sensed the tension roiling off the Burke brothers. But part of me was surprised at Mickys emotional control. At least one of us was calm.

Yamashita could see it all in my face: the anger, the hurt. I had labored long with him to perfect the stolid projection of heiho, but I felt all that skill slipping away, melted down by emotion. He saw that reality in my face, but Yamashita said nothing. His face was flat and closed in on itself.

"My apologies, Mr. Burke," the Japanese man called Mori said, "my assistant meant no disrespect."

He was an older man, probably in his early sixties, but he had the thick, solid look of someone who was still formidable. He was impeccably dressed: dark blue suit, white shirt, and gleaming black shoes. His crimson tie was a slash of deep red. It reminded me of the color of blood.

Micky pulled out his shield. "I don't know who you are, but you just made a big mistake." Then he bent down and pulled a small revolver out of an ankle holster. He gestured at Mori. "You call down and have him drop the piece. Then we'll talk."

Mori grimaced. "Please officer, I think there has been a misunderstanding."

My brother was watching everyone carefully, turned partially so the gun was shielded from sight from the man downstairs. "Oh, I think there's been a misunderstanding, all right..." Micky continued.

"Burke, please!" Yamashita hissed.

I ignored him for a second. Then I said, "That guy is a street thug," pointing downstairs. "He doesn't belong here."

"Indeed," my teacher said, in a tone that told me to take it no further. Mori had presented Micky with credentials that managed to pacify him. But barely. Yamashita watched my brother put his gun away. He saw me prepare to speak, and continued, "Please come in, Professor. Since you are both here ..." He gestured back into the sitting area and glided in without a backward glance.

Old habits die hard. I obeyed and followed him in, pulled into the wake of sheer power that radiated from him. It has a subduing effect. But I fought it. Micky's presence helped. Once in the sitting room, Yamashita began the process of formally introducing me to his guest. Micky drifted to a wall and leaned against it, keeping an eye on everyone. And the stairwell.

I gave a half-bow to the man with the tie like blood, but I had no time for introductions. "Excuse me," I said to Mori, "I have business with Yamashita Sensei." Then I faced my teacher and could feel my lips tightening, curving down with emotion as I prepared to speak. He stood there, unblinking.

"Who is Tomita?" I demanded.

"The matter does not concern you," Yamashita said, his eyes narrowed.

I heard Micky snort. "The D.A. will have a different idea."

"Doesn't concern me!" I blurted out. I took a step toward him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mori's body shift as if he were preparing to move. I got the sense of a matching shift from my

brother. "Art was almost killed. My brother was down there too." I felt my stomach muscles clench with tension.

My teacher was unmoved. Mori spoke: "Mr. Burke, please ..."

I ignored him and glared at Yamashita. Mori hissed in Japanese to Yamashita. It was half statement, half warning: "This is not forgaijin!"

Mori probably didn't think I understood Japanese. The look I gave him told him otherwise.

Gaijin. The translation is innocuous enough: "foreigner." But it has ugly connotations in Japanese. Foreigners are barbarians. Inferior. Incapable of the subtlety of a true nihonjin, a Japanese. In that brief statement, Mori had crystallized the situation. However long I had labored with my teacher, I was still not accepted as a true disciple. Whatever the secret he harbored, I was still unworthy of learning it. Gaijin literally refers to an outsider, someone beyond the bounds of friends, family, and nation. I felt the bitter realization that all I had attempted to achieve with Yamashita was an illusion. The community I had believed I was forging in his dojo was an exercise in wishful thinking.

That night I performed at Samurai House, I had felt the undercurrent of these sentiments from the other masters there. But I had believed my sensei to be above that kind of narrow thinking. As the true situation hit me, I had a sensation of vertigo: a jet of alarm deep within the body's core, a swirl of disorientation.

Yamashita stood there, rooted to the ground. And said nothing. He was like a piece of granite on a rocky headland: waves pounded against him but with no visible effect. His students admired this in him. A day ago, I had, too. Now, I wanted to wring his neck. But even after all this, I couldn't.

I brought my face close to his. "You knew," I hissed. "You knew and you said nothing ..." It was as close as I could come to an actual physical attack. The closeness, the emotion made my words like nothing I had ever done to him. It's odd, in a place devoted to combat, that there is normally so little emotional contact. Everything is sacrificed in the pursuit of heiho,

"Yamashita," Micky said quietly. He had stopped leaning against the wall. "I think you've got information related to these murders." His words came out clipped with anger. "You held out on us, and my partner's in a world of hurt. I'm gonna get a warrant. And I'm gonna bring you in. And when I do, you're gonna be in a world of hurt too."

"Sensei, please!" I said. "Whatever you know, you've got to tell us. I was down there. I saw what the killer did." But the novelty of the exchange didn't move him. Yamashita didn't even flinch. "My brother was down there!" I protested again." My teacher said nothing.

"You owe it to me," I finally said, and loaded the words with all the bitterness I felt. Even now, I still hoped for something, some reaction. An acknowledgment of his complicity. But my teacher stayed mute and I turned away. "My brother was down there," I repeated quietly, as much to myself as to my sensei.

I stormed down the stairs and through the dojo, heading toward the street. Micky slipped in behind me, but he gave the two men in the upper room a look that said he would be back. The thug looked up as we came down the stairs and our eyes met. His were like the oily surface of a murky well, briefly lit with the effort of target acquisition. My eyes were hot and scratchy and I felt a lump in my throat. But emotion had no place here. Yamashita had taught me that much. When the anger burned through, all that was left was a type of pride.

I set my eyes like flint and we left that place.

There's a spot on the Belt Parkway heading east toward Bay Eighth Street where the road curves and you get an expanse of grass right along the Verrazano Narrows. On any given weekend, hordes of kite flyers are there. The kites, ranging from simple to elaborate, are brightly colored, and they whip and twist in the ocean breeze like living things. Even on a weekday morning, there were a few retired guys, in baseball hats and clothes slowly growing baggy on them, clutching lines and watching the kites intensely. They looked as if they expected a revelation of some sort to buzz down the wire.

There were young mothers with strollers who paused, pointing out the spectacle to their children. The colors and motion, the bright blue of the day spoke of good times, leisure, and joy uncomplicated by anything but the vagary of the breeze.

In Tibet, kites were used as instruments of war. The thought came unbidden to me as I watched the scene. The realization made me suddenly aware of just what a mess everything was. It was a sudden jet of resentment. In the beginning of all this, I started to think that working with cops changes the way you see things. Now I wondered whether anything was ever as it appeared to be.

I had run flat out that morning, as hard as possible. As far as I could. It didn't help. In some ways, it showed just how confused I was: I ran in pursuit of the Way that Yamashita had opened to me. Now, even though I was turning my back on it, the discipline would not release its hold. The tether had been forged over years and years. No matter how I lunged and tried to break free, these connections still had mastery over me.

I stood, sweaty in the breeze, and watched the kites swoop in vain attempts at liberation, buffeted by winds not of their choosing.

The day was bright. I turned away from watching and sat on a park bench. I closed my eyes against the deep, warm push of sunlight. After running, even on a bad day, there is a type of calm. I know it's just endorphins at work, but it was welcome anyway.

It is, of course, at times when we are most relaxed that the more subtle powers come into play. The Japanese think that ki is the invisible energy that fills the world. The ability to connect with ki is latent in all of us. And it flowers when the accretion of our mental tensions dissipates, "You can learn how to do it consciously ki is what martial artists are supposed to harness. But sometimes, the ability springs to life in disturbing and unexpected ways. Like the insights we are left with on waking after a bad dream.

The breeze played against me on the bench. I could hear the distant rush of cars as they shot by on the parkway and odd fragments of voices from the kite flyers. I drowsed on the bench with my eyes closed and gradually felt a type of awareness wash over me.

I felt him there.

I know it sounds far-fetched, but I did.

It wasn't a mental thing. It had a far more visceral feel, almost like a low-level electric current was passing through the body. And, as it came, I acknowledged a certainty so deep that it failed to surprise me. My master was near.

I remained perfectly still in the sunshine, eyes closed, and explored the experience. When I was ready, I opened my eyes.

He stood with his back to the water, against the metal railing that lined the pathway. The wind pushed at his clothes, but the fabric danced around his body like smoke against an immovable pillar. We looked at each other in silence. When he started to move toward me, I stood up.

"The awareness has come for you," Yamashita said. He had felt it, too. At any other time, I would have been pleased at the comment. But I was still too hurt.

"Not bad for a Round Eye," I said.

His face tightened with displeasure, but he gestured to the bench. "Please."

I eased myself back down. Yamashita sat stiffly, facing the choppy blue water of the Narrows as if bracing himself against an unseen force.

"I'm surprised they let you go," I told him.

He looked off at the water. "I made a statement. Mori-san enjoys ... certain privileges ... The district attorney seemed content. You must understand, Professor," he began. But I jumped in.

"Oh, I understand, all right. Micky was right. You've been holding out on us."

"It is not as simple as that."

"Oh, no," I agreed. "Probably complicated by having to deal with all these gaijin!"

"Stop!" he grunted and made a short chopping motion with his hand. "You are guessing at things you know nothing about."

I stared right at him, sitting there and gazing off into the distance. He felt the look and his head swiveled slowly around to face me.

"I don't know about things because you haven't trusted me enough to tell me," I hissed. "Me! After all this time."

He blinked once and seemed on the verge of saying something, but movement came easier to him. Yamashita rose slowly and walked across the path to the railing by the water's edge. I followed, like a fighter pressing an advantage, exploiting a weakness. There was some sort of subtle projection going on here. Maybe it was ki. Maybe I was just fed up. But we both felt it, like a barometer shift.

Yamashita leaned his forearms on the railing and grasped his hands. "It is not your place to question my motives, Burke. Have I ever held back in teaching you?" He knew the answer and continued. "No. I have not. I have worked with you for years ..."

"And I deserve your trust," I insisted. I wasn't going to let him wiggle out of this.

Yamashita straightened up and regarded me with those deep eyes. "I have trusted you with the most precious thing I have. The Way."

"Don't give me that," I said, waving my hand in dismissal. I watched his eyes briefly track the movement. "When I needed you the most, you held back. And I want to know why."

Yamashita got an odd expression on his face, as if he were seeing me for the first time. "This has changed you, Professor, neh?"

I shrugged. This was a favorite tactic of his, changing angles of attack. I wasn't going to be suckered in.

"There are some things we regret learning," he cautioned.

"I need to know," I said simply.

Yamashita began to walk slowly along the path, speaking softly. I had to come along to hear what he had to say.

"I remember when you first came to the dojo" he said. "You were so hungry for knowledge..." His mouth tightened in a small, wry smile.

We walked along, an old man and a younger one. Sharing memories in the sun.

I could think back to the years I had spent searching with him: searching for release from the pressures of graduate school, for solace when my dad died. For a sense of place. And belonging.

"Sometimes, our desire for something can work against us ..." he said. I took a breath to answer and Yamashita held up a hand. "I am thinking of your early days, Professor. There is an occupational hazard of people who work with their minds too much. It creates an imbalance. It is revealed in motion, of course."

I remembered that he used to yell at me to stop moving my head, but I refused to say so.

"Yes," Yamashita replied as if reading my mind. "When everything you do involves your brain, you tend to involve your head in everything that you do. You would telegraph your movements through odd little jerks of the head...."

"I stopped," I said, leery of a warm walk down memory lane. My tone conveyed the sentiment.

"Yes. You have approached a place where thought and emotion are more equally at balance. It is revealed in your technique."

I said nothing.

"Part of what you sought with me was that balance," the old man said. "It was what drew you to the art of the sword."

"I thought I was pursuing an honorable Way," I said. The words felt bitter in my mouth.

Yamashita stopped and peered at me. "And now you will reject the Way? And all your hard work? For what reason?"

I stood there with my fists balled on my hips. I leaned close to him. "You know the reason."

"I know what you think the reason is, Burke," he said calmly.

"Don't play with me!"

Now he really smiled and it made me even angrier. "Burke, it is interesting that a man so involved with the life of the mind should now let his emotions run so strongly." He cocked his head to look at me as he began to walk again. "But that, too, is part of what you sought, neh?"

It's a hard thing to explain to an outsider. Studying an art with a teacher like Yamashita was many things: a physical challenge, an act of will. And it was a process of creating links between yourself and others, of making connections between human beings that were so strong because they were forged in heat and discipline and hope and vulnerability.

As I stood there in the sunlight, I squinted to see Yamashita. The glare was intense, and he was hard to see with the sun at his back. I could still feel him with haragei, however. And the sense of connection I felt was only partially eclipsed by anger. And fear that we were being driven apart.

I swallowed. "I need to know why you held back."

Yamashita reached out and touched my arm. It was an unusual gesture. "The reasons are ... not simple."

I snorted. "Things never are, with you."

"So..." he mused. "That does not mean that they are not true." He seemed to straighten a bit, as if shrugging off a weight with a sudden decision. "You are right, Burke. I will explain. But not here. You should come to the dojo" he concluded.

"Why?"

Yamashita began to walk away. "Because you are my student," he said.

My resentment was strong, but ultimately the connection between us proved stronger. I followed him back.

The training hall was once again empty of activity. The man with the gun was there. And so was his boss, Mori Masataka.

Our first meeting had been a brief and awkward one, so we went through the niceties the Japanese cling to in moments of discomfort. Mori bowed and proffered a meishi, a business card, to me. I bowed back to Mori and gave the card a quick glance. It was simple and elegant. The card stock was a fine cream and the lettering was gold. It contained his name and contact numbers, one side in English, the other in Japanese. And that was it.

Except for the chrysanthemum pattern of the Japanese Imperial House.

You show something like this to an old-time Japanese sensei, he would probably pass out from excitement. The Japanese have the oldest ruling dynasty in the world. MacArthur made the old emperor admit he wasn't a god after World War II. Hirohito said it and the people listened respectfully. But they didn't buy it. The Japanese are a polite people and routinely say things they don't really mean. Especially when dealing with foreigners.

The two men watched me carefully for my reaction. But I had learned well. I said nothing and waited.

"Mori-san is a member of the Kunaicho," Yamashita prompted.

I must have been a disappointment to them both, since I didn't swoon. I had more pressing issues on my mind. I wished they would get to the point. But the Japanese are elliptical and you have to accept the idea that explanations emerge at a somewhat slower pace than you might want.

" "What do you know about Kunaicho, Mr. Burke?" Mori asked. His voice had a forceful, precise tone.

"You're a branch of the prime minister's office," I replied as we sat down. The arcane structuring of the modern Japanese bureaucracy is not my area of specialization.

"Yes. The Imperial Household Agency has been placed within that branch of government," he said. "Do you have any idea what our responsibility entails?" he continued. It was a rhetorical question, and he went right on without waiting for my response. "The Yamato House is an ancient lineage that extends back to the very beginning of the Japanese nation. The imperial family is the symbol, the living embodiment of my country."

"Kokutai," I commented.

Mori looked quickly at me. The phrase kokutai, national essence, has some unsavory connotations for many people since it was widely used during the war years by the Japanese government. You don't hear it bandied about much anymore. But the old sensei still refer to it, and I had heard it used with reverence before this.

"The status of the royal family has been diminished in some ways since 1945," he said woodenly, as if referring to an unpleasant event best left unexplored. "And, in a political sense, that is, perhaps, appropriate. But the reverence for the emperor continues to be an important part of Japanese culture. And, as such, his person and his family members must be protected."

"Which is where you come in?"

"Hai. The Kunaicho is the agency responsible for seeing to the needs of the emperor. This includes the maintenance and supervision of the imperial Palace in Tokyo, secretarial duties related to the imperial schedule, travel arrangements for public relations activities, and so on."

"Mori-san," I said quietly, and he turned his head slightly to look right at me. "I don't believe you're a travel agent or a social secretary. People like that don't travel with gunmen."

"Ah," he said. "So. You refer, of course, to the young man below us." Something like an ironic smile appeared on his face.

"He is not Kunaicho. Oh, no... I am here," a pause while he licked his thin lips, "unofficially. In light of events, I thought his presence expedient."