Deshi (2 page)

The whole point of calligraphy is to lose yourself in it, not dwell on distractions. It’s probable that he picked up on the sensations swirling around him, because mastering stillness means you can also vibrate like a tuning fork when conditions are right. I know. And I’ll bet Sakura did, too.

Professionals don’t leak much emotion. The Japanese warriors of old talked about the concept of remaining in
kage,
within the shadow or shade. You don’t give anything of yourself to your opponent. You don’t let enemies see what you think or feel or intend. The killer that day was probably as quiet and self-contained as they come. Yet we all leak some psychic energy, no matter how hard we try.

The atmosphere was charged with tension that day, and the victim sensed it. I work in a discipline with different tools, but the methods are the same. My teachers say that the mind can be distracted and “stick” to some extraneous thing. It creates a gap in your concentration. And you can see it revealed in subtle ways in your technique.

And that’s what I see when I look at that sheet of calligraphy from Edward Sakura. An intrusion. A change in focus.

The killer parked his car on the next block and walked back to the side gate that led to the rear of the property. He eventually had to leave the concrete and stone surface to get to his target, so he left a trace. His footprints through the rich, dark, spring earth suggested a big man. He walked slowly and quietly—the imprints are deeper on the toe and not much dirt was thrown backwards. There was no need for haste and no need to make noise. He obviously knew where he was going and knew what he would find there.

Sakura’s head probably came up as he sensed the killer’s approach. He remained seated in the formal position, legs tucked under him, insteps flat on the floor. The awareness must have come on him with an overwhelming finality. Not a thrill of panic or an electric jolt, but a deep-seated settling, like something at the body’s very core shifting down toward the earth, where it lodged, unmistakable and immovable.

There was no forced entry and none of the smashed doorjamb theatrics you might expect. There was no wasted motion. It was economical and efficient. You would almost call it civilized. Except for the end result.

The killer entered the hut from the door to the calligrapher’s left. Sakura shifted slightly to view the intruder, but remained oriented toward the low table that held his paper and brush. Did his eyes get wide as the attacker loomed there? I would have been scrambling around like mad. But there was none of that either.

Sakura knew about deals. He understood how they worked and how you could work them. But people who knew him also said he had the knack of analyzing things and predicting the outcome way before most other people. He knew when you could still negotiate and knew when the deal was done. So between the phenomenon the Japanese call
haragei
—a type of intuition common among masters of the arts—and his years of business acumen, Sakura pretty much knew what was about to happen. There was no way out.

There may have been some conversation. Not much. The killer was not in a line of work that did much to develop verbal skills. Messages got delivered in more elemental ways. Sakura, turned slightly to gaze on the hulking reminder of mortality that glided into the hut, would want to know why. It’s probably the most common last question there is. But even then, despite the elevated heart rate and the sweat that sprung out in cold, oily drops on his forehead, Sakura was thinking. So his question wasn’t just futile rhetoric. It was part of his last deal. Whether the killer picked up on it or not, Sakura was bargaining for the time he needed. To give us a clue.

He slid a fresh sheet of paper in front of him on the table. With a last look at the killer, Sakura rolled his brush in ink and sought the center one last time. It’s a hard thing to do with the respiration going crazy and fear trying to hammer in through the barrier of discipline.

The brush rustled across the paper. The intruder’s arm arced up as if it were an echo of the action.

The bullet punched in through the thin bone at the temple. The soft slug flattened out and gouged its way through Sakura’s head. When it blew out the other side, his hand spasmed and his last work of calligraphy tailed off without control as the body collapsed.

The killer stepped over Sakura and poked the sheet of paper in inquiry. He grunted with contempt as he read the strokes. This calligraphy before him could tell people nothing. In the distance, a car door slammed and his head jerked toward the sound, alive to the possible threat. He moved toward the door to check and, vaguely uneasy, left without a backwards glance. What was there to see? A small refuge violated. A copy of the Platform Scripture. Rice paper with some meaningless brush strokes. A small huddled figure in a spreading pool of fluid. And, on the delicate
shoji
screens of the room, a pattern of small crimson dots, blown there like raindrops driven before a strong wind.

2
DEAD ANGLE

I wasn’t thinking about a murder. I was thinking about killing.

The Japanese martial
dojo
is a training hall remarkable for its beauty. Clean lines. A lack of clutter. The warmth of wood and the stateliness of ritual. Don’t be fooled. Look closely at us as we move in that space. We watch each other warily, alive to the sudden rush of attack. We’re controlled and focused. But there’s a murderous ferocity running like a deep current in us all. It gets exposed in many small ways.

Most dojo are big spaces. Sound bounces around in them in a jumble of shouts and thuds. But if you have enough experience, you can hear things distinctly. Asa Sensei was a kendo teacher of the old school. When you find a really good group of swordsmen training together, you can hear things in the quality of the noise they make. We were in Asa Sensei’s dojo, and the chant of the swordsmen was fierce, a pulse of sound generated in a circle of swordsmen that rang throughout the cavern of a room. It created an energy that I could feel as I swung my sword and shouted along with them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see both Asa and Yamashita standing and watching us. Their dark eyes glittered, but beyond that, they could have been carved in stone. My teacher’s shaven head sat on his thick body like an artillery shell. Asa was thinner and had gray hair swept back from a wide forehead. But the way they held themselves—the thick, muscled forearms that were visible beneath the sleeves of their indigo training tops; the dense, rooted silence of both men—made them seem almost identical.

They were watchers, those two. It’s how you must get after a while. They drink in their surroundings until they can feel it on their skin, taste it in their mouths. Until the breath flows in and out in the rhythm of what surrounds them. And then, when ready, they strike.

When you see them as they truly are, these men are frightening. They hold so much back, measuring you, judging you. They dole out knowledge in grudging bits, forcing you to struggle for each morsel. Looking back, you reluctantly admit that maybe it was necessary. But while you eventually come to trust them, it makes you wary.

I struggle with this. Yamashita is my teacher and I had once thought him perfect. I knew better now. He was still my sensei, but the relationship had changed. He looks at me with flat, emotionless eyes. And sometimes, I look back in the same way. I’ve learned a great deal. Not all of it is good.

The first time I stood across from Yamashita, any confidence that a black belt in two different arts had given me vaporized in the blast furnace of his intensity. Yamashita knows what you are up to before the nerve flash of your latest bright idea leaps across a synapse. As far as I can tell, he is without technical flaw. And without remorse. With Yamashita, every time you step onto the training floor, you are being tested. Over the years you accommodate yourself to it, but it’s still a reality that hovers just out of sight, like a prowling animal, both feared and resented.

Today, the animal was out in the open.

Yamashita and Asa had gleefully discussed their plans with me. They told me how the great swordsman Tesshu would test his pupils through something called
seigan,
or vow training. There were different levels, but each level required a certain period of practice—one year, two years, three—after which the trainee would face a set number of opponents, one after another. You could fight fifty people. Or a hundred. Or more. The idea was to exhaust the trainee until all conscious thought was burned away and only pure spirit animated the sword. This, they believe, is a type of
seishin tanren,
spiritual forging.

Yamashita related to me how one trainee, on his third consecutive day of fighting, had to be helped to stand up. His fencing gloves were so encrusted with blood that they made it hard to grip the sword. There was literally nothing left of the poor guy.

They love to curl your hair with these sorts of stories. Yamashita and his friend watched me carefully. I shrugged. “That’s why I’m here,” I said. They both looked at me with the contained yet satisfied look of cats. I stared back.

Deep down, of course, my nerves jangled. Yamashita would watch me struggle under the pressure to perform well in an unfamiliar style. Deep down, resentment churned within me.

Don’t let anybody fool you. Underneath all the Zen window dressing, there’s still a great deal of ego involved here. You don’t devote your life to something as demanding as this without developing a certain amount of pride. There is humility, sure. But students measure themselves as much against each other as they do against the more demanding standards that we generate from deep inside ourselves. The sense of being tested again in a new way, of having to prove myself again to Yamashita and his crony, was exasperating. I expected something different after all this time. To have the two teachers watching me like pitiless judges made the subtle competitive vibrations that were always present when you fought people feel almost unbearable.

So you don’t think about it. You focus on the fight. You take the churning and spin it into ferocity. All the blood spilled today would be symbolic, but it doesn’t change the mindset: you strive to kill your opponent or die trying.

The boom of the great drum of the dojo called the group to order. We lined up and knelt in the formal kneeling posture. The bamboo sword called a
shinai
is placed to the left side. The silent row of swordsmen was garbed in the body armor and the midnight blue uniform traditional in this art. We sat and waited. At a command, we placed our hands in the meditation posture and closed our eyes. The effort of centering began for me.

Control the breath. A measured pace of being that slows the heart. Focus on the present. Set aside resentment. Distraction. Fear. There is no line of swordsmen. No teachers watching your every move. Only the Art of the Sword, a sea of experience in which the separate drops of our individual selves merge together.

At least that’s the theory.

I had run through fifteen opponents in the first hour. They were all testing for the last rank before black belt level. Some were smoother than others, some quicker, but they had the intense energy and unconventional mindsets of novices and it made them a little dangerous. I was glad when the sensei called a break. They didn’t let me take off my helmet: part of the whole idea was to create an ordeal. They were succeeding. The leather palms of my gloves were soaked with sweat, however, and they let me change them.

Now I faced the black belts. My awareness of time began to slip. These fighters were far more skilled. The psychic tension of fighting is as big a factor as mere matters of technique. I could exert a type of mental force against my opponents, but now they were capable of pushing back. It meant that the pace of the matches was different: a wary circling, a flurry of attacks. Manipulation of the tips of the swords. Deflections, feints. And pushing against me like a force field, I felt the psychic pressure known as
seme,
communicated through posture and the weapon itself.

After a time, you feel as if you inhabit a world where only heat, sweat, and the fury of the opponent exist. The rest of the world has fallen away. Which is what the sensei want. Total focus on the art. Nothing else. When my focus slipped, or I let fatigue begin to seep in, the sensei made the matches go longer. The message was clear: perfection was my only escape.

At the end of this section of the contest, they let me take my helmet off. It was soaked by this time, with the white wavy patterns of dried sweat forming in spots. I sat formally, put the sword down, and removed my mitts. I was permitted a sip of water. Yamashita glided up to my side and sat down in one smooth, flowing motion. He picked up my sword and began to inspect it, not looking directly at me, but speaking quietly.

“So Professor. I think that your technique is not completely orthodox by kendo standards but you have managed your opponents relatively well.”

It was typical, the grudging compliment that hinted that you were still lacking. My response wasn’t immediate; I was intent on just breathing. When you get tired, or excited, the breathing is the first thing to go. You lose the rhythm and then everything else just collapses. So I sat there. A big bead of sweat shook loose from my nose. I wiped my face on my sleeve.

Yamashita leaned his thick torso in across my front and picked up my gloves to examine them as well. “What is important about this exercise is the stress it creates and how you react to it. How well you maintain your…” he thought for a minute, “… composure. This is important. Now you will face a student Asa thinks has some promise… And… we will see.” He set the gloves down again, placing them palm down on the floor and resting the helmet carefully upon them.

“So who’s being tested, him or me?” I said.

His head swiveled slowly toward me. “It is enough that there is to be a test. I did not say of whom…” His voice was cold in dismissal.

I don’t know whether he saw the annoyed look on my face. After a moment, Yamashita nodded, as if in response to some interior discussion. Oblivious to my feelings. “I think this should be most instructive for you. But remember,” he held up a thick finger, “in terms of pure kendo
waza,
sheer technique, this opponent will surely be superior to you.” I took a breath to say something, but he reached out. For a moment I thought he was going to touch me. It would be an unusual gesture for my teacher. Then he stopped, as if halted by a troubling thought. We looked at each other in silence. Then, with an effort, he went on. “Be aware, Burke. The man you will face has trained for years in just this narrow band of swordsmanship. He will be faster. And more accurate.” His head swiveled up to take in the students milling about. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular.