The Miko - 02 (8 page)

“Sit down, old friend,” Sato said softly, taking his eyes off the older man to save him face. “You already hurt enough as it is.”

Nangi said nothing but, walking awkwardly, managed to sit at right angles to Sato, his back erect, his thin buttocks against the very edge of the chair.

Sato knew that Nangi was lucky to be alive. But of course life was a relative thing and this thorny enigma was never far from his thoughts, even now after thirty-eight years. Did the man tied to the iron lung think life was worthwhile? So, too, Sato sometimes wished to crawl inside his friend’s head for just the moment it would take to learn the answer to the riddle. And in those moments shame would suffuse him; precisely the same kind of shame he had felt when his older brother, Gōtarō, had found him sitting, sexually aroused by their father’s book of
shunga
, erotic prints.

There was no privacy in Japan, it was often said. The crowding because of the lack of space that had existed for centuries; the building materials—oiled paper and wood—that the islands’ frequent and devastating earthquakes, the seasonal typhoons dictated be used in order to facilitate speedy rebuilding: these factors went a long way in guiding the flow of Japanese society.

Because real privacy, as a Westerner understands it, is physically impossible, the Japanese have developed a kind of inner privacy that, outwardly, manifests itself by the many-layered scheme of formality and politeness that each individual lives by because it is his only bulwark against the encroachment of chaos.

That was why the thought of stepping into someone else’s mind, especially so close a friend, brought the sweat of shame out on Sato. Now he riffled through the file they had compiled on Tomkin Industries in order to cover his intense discomfort.

“As for Tomkin, we should not underestimate him, Nangi-san,” he said now. Nangi looked up as he heard the note of weariness in the younger man’s voice.

“How so?”

“His blustering barbarian ways cannot mask for long his keen mind. He hit us squarely when he said that we’re much too dependent on foreign energy sources to allow ourselves to become isolated from the rest of the world.”

Nangi waved away Sato’s words. “A mere stab in the dark. The man’s an animal, nothing more.”

Sato gave a deep sigh. “And yet he’s quite correct. Why else would we be laboring so long and hard on
Tenchi
, eh? It is something that is critically draining our financial resources; it is the most desperate gamble Japan has taken since Pearl Harbor. In many ways it is more crucial to this country’s future than the war ever was. We were able to rebound from that defeat.” Sato shook his head. “But if
Tenchi
should fail or if—Buddha forbid!—we should be found out, then I fear that there will be nothing left of our beloved islands but atomic ash.”

“Tsutsumu’s dead, along with Kusunoki.” The voice was flat and cold. It might have been conveying the message, “Here are ten pounds of rice.”

“Before or after?” By contrast this voice was heavy, thick with foreign inflection. “That is the only thing that matters.”

“Before.”

There was a muffled curse in a language the first man could not understand. “Are you certain? Absolutely certain?”

“I was thorough enough to do an anal search. He had nothing on him.” There was a slight pause. “Do you wish me to withdraw?” Still the voice was emotionless, as if all feeling had been trained out of it.

“Certainly not. Stay just where you are. Any sudden movement on your part could only bring down suspicion and these people are not to be underestimated. They’re fanatics; exceptionally dangerous fanatics.”

“Yes…I know.”

“You have your orders; adhere to them. The
dōjō
’s bound to be in turmoil for the next few days at least. Even they need time to gather themselves. They haven’t picked Kusunoki’s successor yet, have they?”

“There are meetings going on to which I am not privy. As yet there have been no announcements. But tension is high all through the
dōjō
.”

“Good. Now is the time to burrow in. Get as close as you dare. Strike in the midst of this confusion; our tactics are more efficient in this atmosphere.”

“Kusunoki’s death has turned them into alarmists; they see hostiles in the movement of the shadows.”

“Then be especially bold.”

“The danger has increased.”

“And has your dedication to the goals of the Motherland therefore decreased?”

“I will not waver from the cause; you know that.”

“Good. Then this conversation is at an end.”

A light went on atop the scarred metal desk, dim and buzzing, coldly fluorescent, emanating from an ancient khaki gooseneck lamp that had been functionally ugly when new and now was light-years away from that.

This fitful pale mauve illumination revealed a face no more unusual than an accountant’s or a professor’s. Black eyes above sloped Slavic cheekbones were penetratingly intelligent, to be sure, but his fine, tufted hair, the liver spots high on his domed forehead, and the rather weak chin all combined to paint a portrait of a bland, unremarkable man. Nothing could be further from the truth.

His slender-fingered hand came away from the phone; already his mind was racing. He did not like the sudden murder of the
sensei
; he knew well Kusunoki’s power and was astonished that the
sensei
had been overpowered at all. Still, he was trained to use any and all unforeseen circumstance to his benefit, and striking swiftly and surely during times of confusion was standard procedure.

Contrary to what his brethren back home espoused, he enjoyed working with these locals. While he would never invite one to marry his daughter—if he had one—he could admire their expertise, their dogged persistence, and, above all, their rabid fanaticism. This fascinated him; it was also his secret weapon against political assassination back home.

While his position, among all his brethren, was most secure—simply because he fed them a steady diet of fear and secrecy, two elements which never failed to catch their attention—still one found it good practice to keep shuffling the cards, keeping options open, finding the soft spots in one’s superiors’ private lives that would turn the key in the lock of one’s future. That was a lesson he had learned well and hard.

He turned away from the phone, activating the portable but very powerful 512K computer terminal, rechecking the myriad random elements he had thrown at the original program. Still it was holding up.

His grunt in the otherwise silent room told of his satisfaction. With an effort, he rose and lumbered to the door as thick and impenetrable as a bank vault. Dialing the combination, he let himself out.

Nicholas left the dazzling glitter of the enormous hotel behind him, a city within a city, and took the immaculate, silent subway into the Asakusa district. The blank-faced jostling throng who rode along with him with their fashionable clothes and French-style makeup were outwardly very different from the members of the war generation. Yet Nicholas could not forget what happened here—as it did throughout all of Tokyo—on March 9, 1945. The firebombing by American warplanes.

Here in the Asakusa district, people sought the sanctuary of the great and beloved Buddhist temple of Kannon, the goddess of Pity. Built in the seventeenth century, this was thought safe because it had survived all the great fires of Tokyo as well as the most infamous earthquake of 1923. But as hundreds crowded inside, the long, arching timbers, so lovingly wrought by artisans of the fabled past, caught fire. The gray slat roof which had been such a staunch landmark for hundreds of years collapsed inward, crushing the already burning throng. Outside, the ancient stately gingko trees of the surrounding gardens burst into crackling torches, pinwheels of sparks arcing into the howling crimson night, running along street gutters like voracious predators.

Asakusa, like the rest of the city, bore no scars from that time, Nicholas realized. The Japanese had been very careful about that. In this downtown area of Tokyo, more than in any other place in the city, perhaps, the ethos of Japan’s splendiferous Edo period still held sway.

Crowds clouded the gates of Kaminarimon, streaking its great two-story vermillion face with their darting shadows. A scarlet and ebon rice-paper lantern of gigantic proportions swung between the two red-faced wooden statues of the gods of wind and thunder, the bodyguards of Kannon, who, though she failed her people once in the incinerator of the war, was worshiped and loved still.

Dodging those Japanese on the run, Nicholas took the stone-paved Nakamise-dōri, passing sweet and souvenir shops piled high with wares.

On impulse he turned down a near side street, strolling slowly through the relative gloom. He stopped abruptly in front of a tiny storefront that spelled out “Yonoya” in
kanji.
Inside, glass shelves were lined with the slightly oily boxwood combs.

Nicholas remembered Yukio slowly, rhythmically stroking her hair with such a comb. How soft and long and shining were those tresses, thick and lustrous. Once he had asked her if all Orientals had such beautiful hair and she had laughed, embarrassed, pushing him from her.

“Only the ones who can afford these,” she said, still laughing. She showed him the exquisitely hand-carved implement. “Feel it,” she offered.

“Sticky,” he said immediately.

“But guaranteed never to tangle your hair, Nicholas,” she had said in her singsong voice. “This boxwood is brought all the way from Kyushu, the southern island. It is cut and steamed to remove any imperfections and then dried for more than a week above a boxwood-shaving fire. Then the lengths are tied together and bamboo hoops slipped over the bundles, and they are left to dry for thirty years to ensure that they are completely dry before being carved.

“In the shop in Asakusa where I buy these, their craftsmen have studied for twenty years. They sit for ten or twelve hours at a time, immobile except for their working hands, to shape these combs.” Nicholas had been fascinated then just as he was fascinated now. Even with such an everyday implement as a comb, he thought, we take exceptional care and artistry in its manufacture. Could a Westerner—
any
Westerner—ever fully understand the reasons why. Or would they think us mad to devote such time and intense effort to such a small and seemingly insignificant matter.

Again on impulse, he entered the shop and bought a comb for Justine. As he waited for the saleswoman to reoil the boxwood, carefully wrap it in three separate layers of high-grade rice paper, and then place it into its hand-sanded cedar box, his eyes traced the forms of the combs lying in artistic display. With each meticulously rounded corner, with each matched tooth end, he again saw Yukio in front of the mirror, her pale hand rising and falling like a tide through the river of her dark hair. He saw that ebon cascade highlighted against the snow-white kimono, its crimson edges moving like flowing blood.

He leaned forward and, hands on her delicate shoulders, turned her around, lifting her so that she rose. Soft rustle of silk like the bittersweet drift of heavenly cherry petals in mid-April when, it seemed, the ancient gods of Japan returned, filling the scented air with their ethereal presence.

The feel of her, the sight of her, the scent of her, all combined to transfix him, so that he experienced again his deep-seated fear of what she brought out in him: the intensity of sexual feeling. He was barely eighteen, it was 1963. He had had no experience with women, especially one as powerful as Yukio.

It was as if she held him in a tender spell, and now her palm came up to stroke his cheek and he shuddered at the fiery lick the caress engendered in him.

As was usual with them, she had to take the first few steps, sliding her fingertips back along her own body, pushing the rim of the kimono away from her shoulders. It parted with a rustle, revealing the inside slopes of her hard-nippled breasts. Nicholas’ breath caught in his throat and his belly contracted painfully.

With a slither the soft white kimono slid down her arms, the line of crimson along its verge flickering like flame. And now she was bare, the light striping her, throwing into deep shadow the erotic dells of her torso, hiding as it revealed.

Nicholas felt the terror filling him up as, like a sorceress, she moved, freeing his own sexuality, drawing out his own ribboning desire. He could deny her nothing at moments like this.

And yet there was a deeply buried sadness in her as she reached between his thighs, caught gentle hold of him, stroking.

“Is that all you can think of?” he said thickly.

“It’s all I have,” she said in a moan, guiding him.

Slowly refocusing, Nicholas’ gaze lit upon the empty space in the display case caused by the present he had bought Justine. Yukio was gone just as the boxwood comb was gone from the case.

The spotlights’ glare was harder in just that spot, magnifying the nothingness. He wondered what had ever become of Yukio’s magical boxwood comb. Had Saigō hurled it after her into the Straits of Shimonoseki? Had she been wearing it when he clubbed her, stunning her, then binding her for the long rowboat ride across those haunted waters? Or had some small child found the artifact among her abandoned belongings and was wearing it today?

Nicholas found that his eyes were full of tears. Despite his vow never to relive the moment when his evil cousin had told him of Yukio’s death, he had done it. His heart was breaking anew; he felt her loss as keenly this moment as he had a year ago. Perhaps this was one wound that time would never heal.

Blindly he received the exquisitely wrapped package, signed the American Express receipt. It was as if Yukio’s
kami
had appeared at his side, linking arms with him, and, standing by his side, was now looking down at the display of boxwood combs with him.

And for that moment it was as if death had been banished from the world of man, as if there was no dark barrier between life and death, the unknown becoming suddenly known and accepted. Did he walk with the dead, or had Yukio crossed over to live again at his side?