Linnear 03 - White Ninja (73 page)

'In this case, as it is often, the reality is irrelevant.

It is, rather, people's perception of what transpired that counts. The evidence of wrongdoing is before us. That it is an illusion has no meaning. Believe me, the scandal will be real enough as far as Kusunda Ikusa is concerned.'

Shisei took Branding home to her house, because his was sure to be staked out by reporters.

'I want you with me now,' he said solemnly. 'After what's just happened, I don't want any more surprises.'

'Cook,' she said, 'do you know there's a school in Japan that teaches you to lie with your eyes?'

He looked at her as he began to strip. 'I'm going to take a shower,' he said. 'I feel like I've just jetted in from Hong Kong. I want you in the bathroom with me.'

'I won't walk out on you, Cook.'

Branding was naked now. He rolled his soiled clothes into a ball. 'I don't know where to put these things.'

Shisei held out her arms. 'Give them to me. I'll have them cleaned.'

Branding threw them on the bed.

'You're not going to listen to anything I have to say, are you?'

There was nothing in her voice, no pain, certainly no self-pity, and this is what got to Branding. 'You were telling me about this Japanese school,' he said, padding into the bathroom.

'Can I join you?' Shisei asked.

He watched her as she took off her clothes. Who teaches women how to do that? Branding wondered. Certainly not their mothers.

'I thought you might be afraid of me,' she said.

Branding turned on the water, and soon the bathroom filled with steam. It became uncomfortably warm. He stepped into the shower, kept the door open. Shisei followed him in, shut the door behind her.

'About this school,' Branding said. The hot water felt good on his body, sluicing away the dirt, the sweat of fear. God, but he had been frightened when lie had seen David Brisling's corpse in the trunk of his car. But not as frightened as when the police had booked him. 1 couldn't be a criminal, he thought. I haven't the stomach for it.

The school was in the country,' Shisei said. She picked up a bar of soap, began to lather his body. 'All its buildings were in the style of a Swiss chalet. I don't know why, except the entire place had the air of fantasy about it. It was called Kinsei no Kumo, Golden Cloud. All collaborative enterprises in Japan need a slogan to be often recited by those involved. Golden Cloud's was "Kiyoku Utsukushiku Kanzen", "Pure Beautiful Perfect".

'There were only female students at Golden Cloud, but all the instructors were male. I suppose you could say we were taught acting, although it was nothing like the acting you might think of. Do you remember kata, the rules? Well, everything we did at Golden Cloud was according to kata. This meant not merely our acting, but our eating, sleeping, bathing. Everything.

'We played only male parts. There were many reasons for this. We were, for instance, made to memorize the life of the great actor, Yoshisawa Ayame, whose concept of acting was to express an ideal. Women actors, he said, could not express the ultimate feminine ideal on stage, because they would automatically rely on their external feminine charms: their lips, their hips, their breasts. This would destroy the ideal. Only a man could create the ideal woman on stage.'

'But that's crazy,' Branding said.

'Do you think so?' Shisei's soapy hands circled lower and lower on his back. 'Why? Don't you realize that an ideal expression is impossible unless it is wholly artificial? The ideal is but an illusion, skilfully sculpted by the artist.'

Branding turned around. 'Then the same is true for women? Only they can express the male ideal?'

'Yes.'

'But you're a female playing a female role.'

'I am a graduate,' Shisei said. 'Not a student. Besides, most of my classmates at Golden Cloud were there because playing male roles allowed them to lose their own femaleness, to become in a sense sexless. They knew only too well the servile place waiting for them as women in Japanese society. Golden Cloud allowed them to escape that fate, at least for a time.'

'And why were you there?'

'By that time, I knew I wanted to become a talento, a celebrity,' she said. 'I remember watching the marriage of the top two talentos. The media coverage was unprecedented in Japan. Not even the prime minister received that kind of air time. They were treated as if they were royalty. The public adulation was like a wonderful surge of electricity, and I remember thinking that these two perfect people must have entered heaven. They had everything. Everything I wanted.'

Shisei's long lashes were heavy with moisture. 'The truth is, I went to Golden Cloud to gain a measure of control over others,' she said, 'because I knew that, as a female, I would otherwise have none.'

Branding watched the water cascading over Shisei's firm-muscled body. In the small folds and hollows, beads of moisture clung to her flesh. 'So this was where you were taught to h'e with your eyes,' he said. 'Did your instructors also teach you to deceive your heart?'

Her head was lifted to his. 'Cook - '

He touched her. 'If only you wouldn't lie to me.'

'Why is the truth so important to you?' Shisei asked.

'The truth is what I have dedicated my life to.'

'But all of life is a lie.'

'Ah, Shisei, you can't believe that.'

'But I do, Cook. I really do. You would, too, if you knew what I knew.'

Branding suddenly gripped her shoulders, drew her against him until their lips were almost touching. He looked deep into her eyes, the eyes that had been taught to lie, and said, 'Who are you, Shisei? Are you the self-confident lobbyist, slipping artfully through Washington society, playing the game better than almost anyone else? Or are you the concerned environmentalist, wonderfully pure of heart? Or the tormented human painting, kept like an animal at the sufferance of a mad artist? Or the hard-edged little girl sent to Golden Cloud to learn how to submerge her sexuality in order to attain some insane ideal?

'Do you know which one of those people you are, Shisei?' He shook his head. 'I don't think so. I don't believe you're any one - or any combination - of those identities. ''

'I don't think you know who you are. Because somewhere along the way, you lost the sense of your own self. You were taught to deceive, of that I have no doubt. The only trouble is in the end you've deceived only yourself.'

Shisei gave a little cry and, twisting from his grasp, collapsed at his feet. Her head hung, the water smashing her hair flat, bringing it like a curtain down around her face.

'Oh, Shisei, don't do that.' Branding knelt down beside her, lifted her up.

'Cook,' she breathed, 'life for me is a lie because the truth is impossible to face.'

'Only for right now,' Branding assured her. 'But you've got to take the first step towards accepting the truth about yourself.'

'I cannot.'

'If you could tell me the truth about yourself,' Branding said, 'if you could see that I can accept it, that would be a start.'

'No!' She clung to him. 'Cook, no. Don't make me!'

'Shisei,' he said, hugging her to him, 'I can't make you do anything. Although I daresay the opposite has not been true.'

Shisei closed her eyes, her heart hammering. 'I'm tired, Cook.'

Branding turned off the water.

She towelled him off before she began to dry herself. 'I think you left Some clothes in my closet,' she said.

Branding padded into the bedroom, opened the closet door. Inside he found his robe, a fresh pair of underclothes. Shirt and slacks of his were also neatly hung on hangers.

He drew on the robe, tied it. As he did so, he found himself looking at the edge of the closet door. There was a dark patch at head height. It had been wiped clean, but the abrasion of the wood was obviously fresh. He stared at the naked slivers of unpainted wood as if they were an accusing chorus. In his mind, he saw again David Brisling's corpse curled in his car trunk, the lethal wound in the back of his head. It had a vee-shape, Albemarle had said to him over and over during the interrogation at the police precinct. And tiny pieces of wood were found in the mashed flesh. Do you know what could have caused that type of wound, Senator? A plank? What's your best guess? Branding hadn't any. He wondered if he had one now.

His face was still thoughtful as Shisei emerged from the bathroom. She was winding her hair into a thick braid, hesitated when she saw his face.

'Shisei,' Branding said quietly, 'do you know who murdered David Brisling?'

'Douglas Howe.'

'That's what the police think,' Branding said.

There was a swathe of lamplight on Shisei's face, but Branding could not tell what it revealed. 'What's

the point of asking? You know I'll only lie to you.'

Branding said, 'I'm asking you not to. If you feel anything genuine for me in that secret, tortured heart of yours, you'll tell me the truth.'

'Cook, I love you.'

He shook his head. 'I'm not sure what that means right now.'

Shisei stood very still but, even at this distance, Branding could sense a change coming over her. There was a tension, a kind of fluttering of the air between them that made his bowels turn to water. What had she said before? I thought you might be afraid of me. If she had murdered Douglas Howe he would have good reason to be. What would stop her from doing the same to him? But he had no real proof, and never would have. Just a dark accusatory spot on her closet door and his overactive imagination which, in time, he might come to terms with.

After a long time, Shisei said, 'What would you do if I told you the truth?'

Branding shook his head. 'You must tell me because you want to tell me the truth, because you want to start life anew, not because of any reaction I might have.'

Shisei's eyes were glowing like amber subjected to the light. She took a deep breath, fighting for prana, for equilibrium. The atmosphere in the room seemed to quake, ripples extending outwards, until they purled against Branding's chest.

'Yes,' she whispered. 'I know.'

Branding gave a tiny sigh, as if he had been holding his breath. He turned away, began slowly preparing the bed for sleep.

Shisei approached him. 'Is that all you're going to ask? Don't you want to know more?'

Branding stood up, looked into her face. 'I already know more.' That tension again, the sweat collecting in his armpits, crawling down the line of his spine.

'I want you to know something, Shisei. I love you. But I'm not yet sure who it is I love. Is it the perfect illusion, one of the many you've conjured up for me? Or is it you, the real you, hidden deep down somewhere with all your weaknesses and flaws?' His eyes never left hers. 'I need your help to find out. I'm already well acquainted with the illusion. Now I need some time with the real Shisei. Tell me. Are you willing to help me?'

Shisei was crying. 'I can't believe you're still here. I can't believe I haven't driven you away. Why have you stayed? I can't understand it. The more monstrous things you learn about me, the closer you seem to me. Is that possible? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.'

Branding wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms, but he hesitated, sensing that to move at all now would be a mistake. He recalled a vacation out west, talking to a cowboy who had just finished breaking a horse. The cowboy told him that the bronco was at his most dangerous in the moments just before he capitulated, accepting the bit, the direction of the reins, the unfamiliar weight of a human being on his back. That's when you can get hurt bad, the cowboy drawled. 'Cause you relax, thinkin' yore work is done, an' you're safe. Let me tell you, bud, that's shore as shit when you git yore neck broke.

Some similar instinct told Branding now that he was at that critical moment with Shisei. He did not relax, watched, instead, the tears streaming down her face, his heart breaking.

'The truth is - ' Shisei stopped, gathered herself, began again. 'The truth is I love a show. I always have. But even more, I love to perform because I can feel loved then, the collective love of my audience.'

She stopped again, and she was so long in continuing that Branding was certain that was all she could squeeze out now. 'My brother,' Shisei said in a strangled voice, 'said that acting would be the death of me.'

'I didn't know you had a brother.'

'A twin brother.' She gave him a wan smile. 'There are many things you don't know about me, Cook. Many things I wish now I didn't have to tell you.'

'What is it? Do you think I'll leave you when I know?'

Shisei hissed air out of her mouth. 'Cook, no one has ever loved you as I love you. No one else will, because no one else can in the way I do. And whatever happens, that at least will never change. I swear to you I'm telling the truth.'

'Yes. I know.'

'I wish I could believe you.'

'Why? I've never lied to you.' He held out a hand. 'Do you see now how completely you're entangled in the snare of your own deception?'

She leaned heavily against the bed, as if she had suddenly lost the will even to stand up. 'Oh, God, what do you want from me? Don't you understand that die truth will destroy me?'