Ninja, page 58
Within moments, she was in a sound sleep. But he would not give her up, even then, and held her, cradled protectively in his arms and lap, leaving her only once during the long heating day to relieve himself and to wet a towel with cool water so that he could place it over her forehead.
For almost all of the time, he stared down into her face, his features somehow different than they had been earlier. Once, the sound of the quiet bubbling of the fish tank intruded upon his thoughts and he looked briefly over at the denizens of the deep at play among the tall green columns of vegetation and the spiny backs of colored rocks. They regarded him impassively from beyond the glass, from another world entirely.
By the third day she had recovered fully. Before that, she slept on and off most of the time as one does when fighting off an evil disease.
During that time, Nicholas fed her and washed her, not minding at all. He would sit on the porch for long hours at a time, staring out at the sea, past the bathers and the sun worshipers as if they did not exist, but he did not go onto the beach nor near the water. He would not go that far away from her.
And when that day dawned when she opened her eyes and they were perfectly clear, the tiny scarlet motes in the left one as brilliant as fires on a plain, he put his arms around her and kissed her.
It was not until he had made them breakfast and she had taken in the paper that he told her what had happened. He told her everything because this was something she must know, to understand that she had had the strength and the courage to pull through. Because he never could have accomplished it on his own. She had fought the Kōbudera from the beginning.
“I am strong now.” She laughed. “As strong as you.”
“In a way,” he said, more seriously than she, “yes.”
She shuddered. “Such power needs getting used to.”
She read the paper while he cleaned up and the soft clatter of the dishes in the sink as he washed them made her feel cozy and warm.
“Afterward,” she said, “let’s go out on the beach.”
“We should. Summer’s almost gone. We should make the most of these last days out here. Anyway”—he wiped his hands—“there are a couple of people in the city I want you to get to know—”
“Nick—” She looked up from the paper.
He came over to where she was sitting. “Why the look?” He kissed her.
“Look at this.” She pushed the folded paper toward him.
He took it, dropped his gaze from her worried face.
“I ought to call Gelda,” she said as if from a distance.
Local Policeman Dead in Crash (he read). The dateline was Key West, Florida. “Detective Lieutenant Lewis J. Croaker was found dead late yesterday in a rented car, a spokesman for the Monroe County Police Department reported. The car had apparently left the highway at high speed six miles east of Key West, rolled down an embankment and caught fire. Heavy rains and high winds, which have plagued this area for a day and a half, may have contributed to the accident, the spokesman said.
“Detective Lieutenant Croaker, 43, was apparently in Key West on vacation. Contacted at his office at One Police Plaza, Captain Michael C. Finnigan, Detective Lieutenant Croaker’s immediate superior, commented…”
But Nicholas had already stopped reading. There was a pounding in his chest, a hollow kind of thudding, echoing away as if he stood inside an empty shrine. His vision blurred and he seemed unaware that the paper was shredding through his clenched fingers.
“Nicholas…” Justine stood beside him, arms crossed, hands clasping her elbows impotently, the physical for the moment put precariously at bay by the emotional. “I can’t believe it.”
But he could, with that typically Asian perspective of the acceptance of events as they evolve. Karma, he thought savagely. But Croaker’s death was like a knife thrust into his bowels, a kind of seething pain that would not dissipate.
Then he recalled why Croaker had gone to Key West. He read the article again, this time from first sentence to last. On vacation, indeed. As if Croaker’s kami hovered in close asylum at his right hand, he heard again, He’s a murderer, Nick. If I had any lingering doubts as to Tomkin’s complicity in the Angela Didion case, they went bye-bye with that order to officially shut down. He’s a shark, man. You’d better face up to it. A hot wind from the cemetery, out from the shade elms, assailed him as he began to see past events in a chill new light. The confrontations between Tomkin and Croaker had been deliberate. Croaker had wanted to needle Tomkin, perhaps provoking him into making some precipitous move, like an attempt to silence Croaker. Now it had come, the whisper of the gibbet. And Frank, Tomkin’s chief bodyguard, had been gone several days, who knew where?
I’ve gotta nail him on this. It’s a matter of honor. Every remembered word a knife twist. If I don’t do it, nobody’s gonna be able to.
He got up and went to the phone, his mind abruptly quite clear, and dialed a number. His whole body seemed to ache as if he had been recently beaten. He did not think it fair that this should have happened to them; friendship as special as this was meant to be savored, not snatched away by a thief in the night. He felt strongly as if they had both been cheated. This, he knew, was Western thinking and he set it aside, compartmentalizing it, as he had been taught, just as someone places a treasured item on a high shelf, out of harm’s way. Still, for the briefest moment, he could picture the four of them on a long sleek sloop, wet from the salt spray, laughing and carefree, the sun in their eyes. Then he banished the vision, letting it part from him as if it were the last ray of the sun slipping below the dark horizon. But did that change anything? Not at all, as he had already seen. Love and friendship were inextricably entwined in Japan and he was, after all the time in the West, the clothes, the new veneers, an Easterner, now and forever. He knew this with an abrupt and wrenching conviction that both thrilled and calmed him. He had a sense of place now, as well as a sense of time.
And sacrifice, revenge, the cornerstones of Japanese history, were both a part of him, too. This had been Itami’s last message to him, though, at the time, he had not fully understood.
Croaker’s death made it all too plain.
Now a quote attributed to Ieyasu Tokugawa flew through his head like a bird of prey, circling in the sky of his mind. He knew what to do.
“What is it?” Justine asked him. Her voice was thick as if she were still in shock.
He put his finger to his lips, said into the phone, “Is he in? It’s Nicholas Linnear.” He waited a moment. Justine came up behind him, entwining her arms around him.
Frank answered. So he had returned. Bastard. But his voice was controlled as he said, “Had a good vacation? Yeah. Too bad you missed all the excitement.” He felt the press of her breasts against his back. He put one arm around behind him, holding her. “Sure. Next time I see you, I’ll tell you all about it.” And thought: It might be a lot sooner than you think. Frank said to hold on a minute.
He closed his eyes briefly, saw the sea at that time of day when the sun, having left the sky, turns it into the brightest piece of topography; in twilight, the water shines like a carpet of light.
“Hello,” he said. “I’ve thought about your offer. Yes. Yes, I know what I said then.” His eyes snapped open and Justine, so close against him, felt the tension flooding through him and wondered at the disparity between his words and his feelings. “But things have—changed a bit. I’ve reconsidered. Yes. I thought you might be.” Oh, Ieyasu! How right I shall prove you! “Any time you say.” His knuckles went white as they gripped the receiver. “Yes. I just read about it in the paper. Sure. A friend. I got to know him a bit.” Justine, sensing his mounting anger, pressed herself more tightly to him as if her presence might mollify him in some way. Nicholas, feeling her warmth seep into him, knew that quite soon—certainly before they went down to the beach—he would want to make love to her, need to even as he grieved for his friend. Perhaps because of it. He was returning to life now and so was she.
“In a week?” he said. “No, I don’t think there will be a problem. You’ll just need to fill me in on all the details. But even that… Well, we can go over it on the plane, can’t we? Yes. Yes.” He listened for a moment more, his mind far away. “I’ll see you, then. Soon. Very soon.”
He was one now with Ieyasu, with his words: To come to know your enemy, first you must become his friend. He drew all the warmth he could from Justine, now. Because he had gone cold with the realization that Tomkin had sent Frank out to find the woman in Key West. And then Croaker had been killed in Key West. Murder. The word rang like a heavy bell in his mind. If not for you—he thought into the phone as he cradled it.
And once you become his friend, all his defenses come down. Then can you choose the most fitting method for his demise.
Afterword
THERE ARE, IN JAPANESE martial philosophy—which incorporates many elements of both the Buddhist and Shinto religions—five cardinal signs: Ground, Water, Wind, Fire and the Void.
Miyamoto Musashi’s Go Rin No Sho exists to this day.* It is, literally, A Book of Five Rings.
The Ninja, too, is a book of five rings.
* A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, translated by Victor Harris, is published by The Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Nicholas Linnear Novels
NARA PREFECTURE, JAPAN
SPRING, PRESENT
MASASHIGI KUSUNOKI, THE sensei of this dōjō, was making tea. He knelt on the reed tatami; his kimono, light gray on dark gray, swirled around him as if he were the eye of a great dark whirlpool.
He poured steaming hot water into an earthen cup and, as he took up the reed whisk to make the pale green froth, the form of Tsutsumu shadowed the open doorway. Beyond his bent body, the polished wooden floor on the dōjō stretched away, gleaming and perfect.
Kusunoki had his back to the doorway. He faced the edge of the shōji screen and the large window through which could be seen the cherry trees in full blossom, clouds come to walk the earth, marching up the densely wooded slopes of Yoshino, their oblique branches as green as the hills beyond, covered with ancient moss. The scent of cedar was very strong now, as it almost always was in this section of Nara prefecture, save during those few weeks of winter when the snow lay heavy through the ridges and rises of the terrain.
Kusunoki never tired of that view. It was steeped in the history of Japan. It was here that Minamoto no Yoshitsune sought the shelter of these fortresslike mountains in order to defeat the treachery of the Shōgun, his brother; it was here that the great doomed Emperor Go-Daigo assembled his troops and ended his exile, beginning his attempt to return to the throne; here, too, where Shugendo developed, the way of mountain ascetics, a peculiar fusion of Buddhism and Shinto. Mount Omine was out there and on its slopes congregated the yamabushi, the wandering, self-mortifying adherents of this syncretic religion.
He looked now at the tea, its color lightening as the spume rose, and he saw all there was to see beyond that thin pane of glass.
Behind him, Tsutsumu was about to announce himself softly but, seeing the sensei kneeling, unaware, froze his tongue. For a long time he contemplated the figure on the tatami, and as he did so his muscles began to lose their relaxedness. He had been alert; now he was ready. His mind sought the many pathways toward victory while his eyes drank in the utter stillness in the other. The hands must be moving, Tsutsumu told himself, because I know he is preparing the tea…yet he might as well be a statue for all I can see of it.
He knew the time to be right and, unbidden, he rose, unfurling himself like a sail before the wind. Taking two swift, silent strides, he crossed the threshold and was within striking distance. His body torqued with the first onset of intrinsic energy.
At that instant, Kusunoki turned and, extending the hot cup of tea, said, “It is always an honor to invite a pupil so quick to learn into my study.”
His eyes locked onto Tsutsumu, and the student felt as if he had hit against an invisible, impenetrable wall. All the fire of the energy he had banked for so long, now at last turned loose, was stifled, held momentarily in thrall, then dissipated.
Tsutsumu shivered involuntarily. He blinked as an owl might in daylight. He felt intensely vulnerable without that which had always been his.
The sensei was smiling pleasantly. “Come,” he said, and Tsutsumu saw that another cup of tea had somehow materialized. “Let us drink together…to show respect and our mutual good intentions.”
The student smiled awkwardly and, shakily, sat on the tatami facing Kusunoki. Between them was a break in the reed mats that was far more than an architectural or an esthetic delineation. It was the space between host and guest, always observed.
Tsutsumu took the cup and, holding it carefully and correctly in both hands, prepared to drink. The warmth of the tea rushed into his palms. He bowed to his sensei, touched the curved rim of the cup to his lips, and drank the intensely bitter beverage. It was very good, and he closed his eyes for an instant, forgetting where he was and, even, who he was, to the extent that that was possible. He tasted the earth of Japan and with it all things Japanese. History and legend, honor and courage, the weight of kami, hovering. And, above all, duty. Giri.
Then his eyes opened and all was as it had been before. He felt again the uncomfortableness of being so far from home. He was from the north and Nara was an alien place to him; he had never liked it here. Yet he had come and had stayed for two long years. Giri.
“Tell me,” Kusunoki said, “what is the first thing we assess in combat?”
“Our opponent,” Tsutsumu said immediately. “The exchange of attitude and intention tells us where we are and how we are to proceed.”
“Indeed,” Kusunoki said, as if this were a new concept to him and he was mulling it over in his mind. “So we think of victory.”
“No,” the student said. “We concern ourselves with not being defeated.”
The sensei looked at him with his hard black eyes that seemed ripped from a hawk’s fierce face. “Good,” he said at last. “Very good, indeed.”
Tsutsumu, sipping his tea slowly, wondered what this was all about. Words and more words. The sensei was asking him questions to which any good pupil must know the answers. Be careful, he cautioned himself, remembering the instantaneous dissolution of his attacking force. Be on guard.
“So here we equate defeat with the end of life.”
The student nodded. “In hand-to-hand we are on the death ground, as Sun Tzu has written. We must fight, always.”
Now Kusunoki allowed a full smile. “But Sun Tzu has also written, ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting shows the highest level of skill. Thus, what is supreme is to attack the enemy’s strategy.’”
“Pardon me, sensei, but it seems to me Sun Tzu was speaking solely about war in that instance.”
“Well,” Kusunoki said evenly, “isn’t that what we are also talking about?”
Tsutsumu felt his heart skip a beat and it was with a great personal effort that he kept himself calm. “War? Forgive me, sensei, but I do not understand.”
Kusunoki’s face was benign as he thought, And Sun Tzu also wrote that those skilled in war can make themselves invincible but cannot cause an enemy to be vulnerable. “There are many faces war may take on, many guises. Is this not so?”
“It is, sensei,” Tsutsumu said, his pulse in his throat.
“We can ask, what war can be made here”—his arm drifted through the air like a cloud, describing an arc toward the wonder and peace of the wooded hillsides visible through the window—“in Yoshino where the history of Japan lives, and thrives. One might think war an outmoded concept here among the cherry trees and the cedars.”
His great black eyes fixed on Tsutsumu, and the pupil felt a muscle along his inner thigh begin to tremble. “Yet war has come to this indomitable fortress of nature. And thus it must be dealt with.”
Now Tsutsumu was truly terrified. This was no ordinary invitation to sit at the sensei’s feet and sip tea while speaking of mundane matters, the substance of daily lessons.
“There is a traitor here in Yoshino,” Kusunoki said.
“What?”
“Yes, it is true.” Kusunoki nodded his head sadly. “You are the first I have spoken to about it. I observe you in class. You are quick, quick and intelligent. Now you will work with me on this matter. You will spy for me among the students. You will begin now. Have you observed anything out of the ordinary that might help us in identifying the spy?”
Tsutsumu thought furiously. He was not unaware of the amazing opportunity being afforded him and was immensely grateful for it. He felt as if a great weight had been taken off his chest. Now he must make the most of this opening. “I seem to remember,” he began. “Yes, yes. There is something. The woman,”—he used a most unflattering inflection—“has been seen here late into the evening hours.”
“What has she been doing?” There was no need to name her. The dōjō contained only one woman—a choice of the sensei that was not popular with his pupils though none dared voice their displeasure where he could hear. Nevertheless, he knew about it.
Tsutsumu shrugged. “Who knows, sensei? Certainly she was not practicing.”
“I see.” Kusunoki seemed engulfed in thought.
Tsutsumu sought to press his advantage. “Of course there has been much talk lately concerning her; a great deal of talk.”
“She is not liked.”
“No, sensei,” Tsutsumu confirmed, “most of the students do not feel she has a place here within the sanctity of the dōjō. It goes against tradition, they feel. This kind of…ah…training should not be open to a woman, they believe.” The student bowed his head as if reluctant to go on. “Forgive me, sensei, but there has even been some talk that her presence here was the reason that you left your high position within the Gyokku ryu. They say she came to you there, that on her behalf you went to the council oijonin and sought their vote for her entry into the ryu. They say it is because you could not muster enough votes within your own council that you left.” His head raised. “All because of her.”
