The Nicholas Linnear Novels (177 page)

By the time Nangi raised his head, Justine was prepared. “Nangi-san,” she said, forsaking her American inclination to address friends by their first name, “in the past we have often not seen eye to eye.”

“I don’t think this is so, Mrs. Linnear.”

That damned politeness. “This, I admit, has been mostly my fault,” Justine persevered. She knew she had to go on, that if she stopped for any reason, she might lack the courage to see this through to the end. “I do not understand Japan. I do not understand the Japanese. I am an outsider here; a foreigner.”

“You are the wife of Nicholas Linnear,” Nangi said, as if this was all she needed to be.

Listen to me!
she wanted to scream. Instead she took a deep breath, said, “Nangi-san, I wish to learn. I wish to work hard at an elementary level.”

Nangi seemed uncomfortable with this idea. “This is not necessary, Mrs. Linnear. You are already well thought of.”

Justine said, “I wish, as a child must, to become recognized in this society.”

Nangi said nothing for a time. The choir practice was finished. He could hear the faint rustlings and whisperings of the children as they departed. In the nave, to one side, candles were being lit. Echoes came to him, as soft as raindrops.

“Change,” Nangi said at last, “is often for the best if it has been preceded by thought.”

“I’ve thought about this a lot.”

Nangi nodded. “Have you discussed this with your husband?”

Justine sighed inwardly. Sadness gripped her heart. “Nicholas and I have not spoken much lately.”

Nangi’s head swung around until his good eye was upon her. A Westerner would have said, Is anything wrong? Nangi said, “I have spoken very little to Linnear-san myself. He seems somehow…different. The doctors…?”

Now Justine sighed out loud. “The doctor is useless in this situation. He says that Nicholas is suffering from a kind of postoperative stress syndrome. I don’t believe he has grasped the nature of the situation.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “At least, I’m not sure. But Nicholas’s black mood seems to stem from his inability to practice his martial arts.”

Nangi involuntarily sucked in his breath. Dear God, he thought, protect us now. Through his shock, he felt insinuating again that terrifying premonition of an oncoming storm, malevolent, sentient. He remembered all too well his perception of a moral twilight falling upon him and those around him. “Are you quite certain of this, Mrs. Linnear?”

“Yes,” Justine said without hesitation. “I saw him in his workout room. He was unable to function.”

“Was there a physical impairment?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

Nangi appeared to take her at her word, and now Justine could see the distress in his face.

She was about to say, What is it? Then began to think furiously. “Are we thinking along the same lines?” she said.

“Perhaps. In the martial arts, Mrs. Linnear, the mental often controls the physical. If one’s mind is not properly attuned, aligned, or trained, one cannot master the martial arts. This is difficult for many Westerners to comprehend.” He gave her a small smile. “Forgive me, I mean no offense. But you said that you wished to learn. What I say is most basic, and that is part of its power.”

He paused a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. “When one first begins martial arts training, one is more often than not given the most menial tasks to fulfill. Day in, day out, the novice often feels that his life is filled with drudgery. Some students, disillusioned, give up their training. The others—the ones who will eventually go on to become
sensei,
masters themselves, learn patience and humility. Without these qualities no form of martial arts skill is possible.

“But the mental aspect goes far deeper, and in Nicholas’s case, it becomes everything.” Justine noted Nangi’s switch to using Nicholas’s Christian name, and wondered what it meant. “You see, Mrs. Linnear, your husband is one of those rare people who have mastered
Aka-i-ninjutsu.
He is what we call a Red Ninja. He has learned the good side of this specialized martial arts discipline.”

“You mean, there are other forms of ninjutsu?” Justine asked.

Nangi nodded. “There is the Black Ninja, the Red Ninja’s opposite side. Saigo was a Black Ninja. He practiced the
Kuji-kiri,
the Nine Hands Cutting. A kind of magic.”

“Like his hypnosis on me.”

“Precisely.” Nangi found himself hoping that her basic knowledge of what Nicholas was would help her accept without fear what he had to tell her now. “But the
Kuji-kiri
is only one of many dark and deadly Black ninjutsu.” Shadows fell away from Nangi’s face as he turned more fully toward her. In this light the deep lines time and the war had etched into his face were more prominent. “Nicholas has mastered
Getsumei no michi,
the Moonlit Path. It is a mental discipline that is both his gateway and his solace, his strength and his refuge. You said before that you did not believe that Nicholas had a
physical
disability resulting from his operation.”

Justine felt the fear crawling like a serpent in her stomach. But, too, she felt curiously empty there, as if the serpent had no substance, but instead belonged to another, less substantial world. “What are you saying?” she whispered.

“If one is trained in
Getsumei no michi,”
Nangi said, “and one day one reaches for it, and it is no longer there…” He paused, as if unsure how to proceed. “The magnitude of the loss, Mrs. Linnear, would be incalculable. Consider the simultaneous loss of all your five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch—and you will have some measure of what the loss of
Getsumei no michi
is like. But only a measure. It would be more. Far more.”

“I cannot imagine such a thing.” Justine was sick with shock. “Is this what has happened to Nicholas?”

“Only he can tell us, Mrs. Linnear,” Nangi said. “But I pray with all my heart that it is not so.”

“After Lew Croaker lost his hand,” Justine said, “I had the feeling that Nicholas was intent on putting aside his interest in ninjutsu. Isn’t it possible that that phase of his life is ended?”

“It will end,” Nangi said, “only when he is dead.” He pressed his hands together almost as if he wished again to pray. “You must understand that ninjutsu is not something one just decides one day he will learn. Similarly, it is not a plaything that one can pick up and put down at a whim. It is certainly nothing on which one can turn one’s back. Ninjutsu is, rather, an integrated way of life. Once entered, it can never be renounced.”

Nangi turned more fully toward her. “Mrs. Linnear, you no doubt have heard or seen the word
michi.”

Justine nodded. “It means a path or a journey.”

“In a sense,” Nangi said.
“Michi
can also mean duty. So when one speaks of
michi
as a path, it is a path off which one steps only at the most extreme peril.
Michi
is, in effect, life’s journey. Once begun, there can be no turning back.”

“But surely one is free to change one’s life.”

“Oh, yes,” Nangi said. “But always within the confines of
michi.”

Justine’s heart seemed made of lead. “You mean that once Nicholas chose to be a ninja, it was for life?”

“Perhaps ninjutsu chose him, Mrs. Linnear.” Nangi’s face seemed sad to her. “We must not discount that possibility. And, if this is so, then Nicholas’s
karma
still lies ahead of him.”

“Why should this be so? How does ninjutsu come to have so much power over a man?”

Nangi pondered how he should answer her. He decided on the truth. “Ninjutsu is an ancient art,” he began. “Older even than Japan itself.”

“The Japanese did not create it?”

“No. We Japanese are not good at creating. Our forte is in refining. Our language, much of our culture, has its origins in China. We took the Chinese language, for instance, pared it down, made its ideograms more streamlined. That is Japanese. So it is with
ninjutsu.
Its origins lie somewhere in China, although to my knowledge no one knows precisely where it comes from or from what
sensei
it developed.
Ninjutsu
is most likely a synthesis of many ancient disciplines distilled down. Refined. Its extreme age is, for one thing, part of its power. For another, the element of mysticism involved makes it a life’s work.” He showed her a small smile. “One couldn’t, to give a Western example, imagine Merlin renouncing his work, becoming a farmer instead of a magician.”

Justine did not feel at all reassured. On the contrary, she had begun to feel chilled. “Perhaps if we were to learn more about the origins of
ninjutsu,
we could understand it better. We could help Nicholas.”

“But that is impossible, Mrs. Linnear. You are asking to know the unknowable.”

Justine felt as if they were all in a maze. She reasoned that there had to be a way out. “You have mentioned Red and Black
ninjutsu,
whose strictures are, as you’ve said, more severe than even the Catholic priesthood.” Justine studied him. “Maybe Nicholas could change from Red to—Are there other forms of
ninjutsu
?”

“No.” Nangi seemed about to go on, then hesitated.

Justine sensed something. “Perhaps a student should not be given too much knowledge at once,” she said, learning from him just by watching him. “But a wife has certain privileges a student does not.”

For a moment Nangi seemed very old. He was thinking that perhaps he had underestimated her, after all. By the force of her intellect and her intuition, she had come to the heart of the matter. He nodded, and his face was once more in shadow. “Very well,” he said. “I spoke the truth when I said that there were only two forms of ninjutsu, Red and Black. However, there is a term,
Shiro Ninja.
It means White Ninja.”

The silence stretched out for so long that Justine found herself compelled to say, “White Ninja. What is that?”

“That,” said Nangi with great pain, “is a ninja who has lost his powers.” He did not, as yet, want to tell her all of it, that for
Shiro Ninja
the loss of his powers was secondary to his loss of faith. That was something to which Nangi could relate.

Justine thought she was beginning to understand Nicholas’s recent behavior. “Could this be why Nicholas has chosen to shut me out?”

“It is likely,” Nangi nodded. “For someone such as Nicholas,
Shiro Ninja
is his worst nightmare come true. At such a time as this, he would not want you close to him.”

“Why not? I could help him. He’s so alone now, drawn into himself.”

Nangi’s eyes seemed restless, roving the nave, the lines of dark wooden pews. “Please try to understand, Mrs. Linnear. He would be vulnerable to assault. Naturally, he would not want you near him at a time like this.”

“Assault?” Justine felt the serpent of fear uncoiling, slithering. “Saigo and Akiko are dead. Who would want to harm him?”

Nangi said nothing.

Justine, her nerves at hair-trigger level, sensed something. “What aren’t you telling me? Nangi-san, please tell me. I must know. My life is disintegrating and I don’t know why. Do you?”

Nangi stared at her out of his good eye, his gaze steady. “Mrs. Linnear,
Shiro Ninja,
White Ninja, is a wholly
created
state. Do you understand me? It is a subtle kind of attack. An ultimate attack by someone proficient in
Kan-aka-na-ninjutsu,
Black ninjutsu.”

“Then there
is
someone out there; another enemy. A Black Ninja
sensei.”

Nangi’s good eye closed for just a moment. “Even Black Ninja
sensei
do not have sufficient knowledge to induce
Shiro Ninja,
Mrs. Linnear.”

Justine could barely speak. A terror such as she had never known before had enwrapped her in its coils. She shivered, as if with the onset of winter. “Who then?” It was a whisper, hoarse and constricted.

“It is not to be spoken of,” Nangi said. “It is a
dorokusai,
a thing reeking of slime.”

“What is that? For God’s sake, Nangi-san, tell me!”

“Patience.” In an extraordinary gesture, Nangi put his hand briefly over hers. “Let us find Nicholas, Mrs. Linnear. Let him tell us what has happened. If he is, indeed,
Shiro Ninja,
then you will need to know everything.”

Cotton Branding and Shisei ate lobsters he cooked on the gas grill, stir-fried vegetables that Shisei sizzled in an electric wok she found, a salad of local greens, and thick chunks of Italian bread. She arranged it all so artfully it made Branding want to take a picture of it. The stunning visual display somehow made the food taste all the better.

They went through a six-pack of beer, and he was returning to the refrigerator for a second six-pack before he realized it.

Branding knew that he was besotted—with sex, with food, with the beer—but mostly with Shisei. He did not ever want her to leave. He thought that he might be content going with her from bedroom to kitchen and back again for the rest of his life. It was a dream, of course, but a happy dream, an ecstatic dream, and Branding reveled in it.

They spoke of many things. Branding, lolling on the great porch, feeling the wet mist rolling in off the water, hearing it muffle the constant pounding of the surf, contrived to speak as little as possible. He was fairly far gone, but not so far that a tiny central piece of him had stopped testing her.

During all this long afternoon and evening, Branding, happier than he had ever been since the early days of his marriage to Mary, before the birth of his daughter, whom he loved but who created with her dyslexia an unimaginable chaos and grief, had been more or less waiting for Shisei to bring up the topic of his work and, especially, his upcoming political battle with his personal nemesis, Douglas Howe.

Shisei was, frankly, too good to be true. The fact that she had come into his life at just this moment had embedded itself in his psyche and, like a pearl growing inside an oyster, had festered, prodding him back to reality when the dazzling sheen of his ecstasy had begun to wear off.

It was no wonder that he was becoming paranoid. Branding suspected that Douglas Howe, and Howe’s dogged persistence in opposing Branding’s ASCRA bill, was finally getting to him. Acting on the findings of a five-year report commissioned by the Washington-based Johnson Institute, the Defense Department’s Advanced Strategic Computer Research Agency had petitioned Capitol Hill for a four-billion-dollar funding over five years in order to finance the Hive Project. Branding, as chairman of the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee, had been the first to see the report, and the first to act on it.