The Nicholas Linnear Novels (138 page)

“Well there
is
something you don’t know then.” Part of his training had been in speaking. Just as
kiai
was used as a war shout to terrify and, in some cases, paralyze one’s opponent, so there was a more subtle offshoot,
ichi.
In this case it meant “position” because of what the wielder could accomplish with inflection and intonation. It was immensely difficult to master. This, combined with the fact that
ichi
was often affected by outside factors beyond the wielder’s control, made it virtually a lost art. Akutagawa-san had, among other things, been an
ichi sensei
and he had seen in Nicholas an apt and willing pupil. “I was beginning to think of
Gospadin
Protorov as omniscient.” He thought that
ichi
just might save his life now.

“Kill him,” Koten growled. “Shoot him now or I will kill him for you.”

“Quiet, you,” Russilov said. He had not taken his eyes off Nicholas during the entire exchange. He cocked his head. “Come here, Comrade Linnear,” he said as thunder rumbled east to west above their heads. The rain beat down on them, silvered as it spun through the lights. “You are going to get your wish, after all.”

And Nicholas thought, Protorov!

T
HIS IS HOW AKIKO
came to save Saigō’s life and how he paid her back in kind. The autumn of 1963 was a cold and dismal one, filled with an inordinate amount of rain, sleet, and even snow, premature and the color of silver, dying upon the ground like stranded carp.

Already, in Kyūshū, where Sun Hsiung sent Akiko for the next phase of her training, the farmers were hard at work atop stained wooden ladders, spinning delicate cocoons of retted linen gauze over their precious trees to keep them from winter’s harsh hand.

It was unusual to see them at this so relatively early in the year, and like the unpredictable inclement weather it boded ill for the coming winter, whose expected virulence had been spoken of in hushed whispers throughout the countryside ever since summer evaporated overnight like woodsmoke.

Mist shrouded this part of Kyūshū so thoroughly that upon her arrival Akiko could discern neither Mount Aso nor the giant smokestacks of the vast industrial complex sprawled through the valley to the northwest of the city.

She hated Kumamoto immediately. Once in feudal times perhaps it had possessed a certain charm, but in these days of Japan’s mighty economic leap forward the blued patina of industrial wastes coating the old buildings were merely a reminder of how tiny a backwater Kumamoto really was.

Nevertheless Akiko had resigned herself to be here at the
Kanaka na ninjutsu ryu.
Its symbol was a circle within which were nine black diamonds. Within the open heart of them was the
kanji
ideogram
komuso.
And when she saw it she knew: the
Kuji-kiri.
Black
ninjutsu.

There was difficulty, even with Sun Hsiung’s personal chop affixed to her letter of introduction. The
sennin
, an ax-faced individual who appeared to be almost unhealthily thin, let her cool her heels for fully half a day before he summoned her within his chamber.

Then he was most effusive in his apologies. In his eyes Akiko could discover nothing, not even the basic spark that distinguished human beings from the less sentient creatures of the earth. And alone, kneeling before him on a bare reed
tatami
, she began to feel at last a sadness she needed some time to identify. At length she was surprised to discover that she missed Sun Hsiung, and part of her wished that she had never left his warm and comfortable house.

And yet there was a stronger, more urgent desire which had driven her from comfort and warmth. It was her
karma
to be here now, she knew that as well, and did not question it. Acceptance was all she had of her own now.

For his part, the
sennin
despised her on sight and silently cursed her former
sensei
for evoking his right of privilege here. There was absolutely no question of sending her away though the
sennin
wished most fervently for such an occurrence.

His only hope, he correctly detected, was if the training here—and the life—were too rigorous, too taxing both emotionally and physically for this woman. He shuddered inwardly and tried not to think about her presence here, the inevitable disruption of discipline and ritual her
wa
would cause.

Even now he could sense the peculiarly female flux of her spirit, experiencing it almost as a painful interruption in the confluence of forces he and those beneath him had labored so long and hard to perfect.

Therefore he smiled as benignly as he was able and with an inward exclamation of delight consigned her into the care of the one pupil who, at the very least, would drive her out of Kumamoto.

The
sennin
watched unblinking as she bowed formally and rose. As he watched her retreating back he smiled to himself, his thoughts on the best of possibilities regarding his newest student’s fate: that Saigō would destroy her.

Not literally, of course, for had that occurred the
sennin
would have lost enormous face with Sun Hsiung and that he could not have tolerated. No, no. If he knew anything about his pupils, he had chosen correctly. There was a peculiar and somewhat frightening demon which rode Saigō’s back, its talons sunk so deeply that the
sennin
had given up trying to exorcise its presence.

Let the Haunted One, as Saigō was known privately by a number of the
sennin
, drive the unwanted female out; let it be her choice. That way face was saved all around. The
sennin
could take no blame from Sun Hsiung and the female could return with honor to the areas for which she was best suited: the tea ceremony and, perhaps, flower arranging.

The moment Akiko came up to him in the
dōjō
, and told him of his assignment, Saigō knew the low regard in which he must be held by the
sennin.
This was an outcast’s work, he thought darkly, holding the hand of a
female
student. He glared at her as anger and resentment welled up in him.

For her part, Akiko sensed immediately that she had been directed into the tiger’s den. Her
wa
contracted at the icy contact with Saigō’s hostile emanations and she knew that in order for her to survive here she must first win him over and then, one by one, do the same with every individual at the
ryu.

Akiko spent more of her time that afternoon observing him as he took her on a tour of the
ryu
, which was in effect a world within a world, a secret
dōjō
in the middle of a basically industrial town, wrapped in the trappings of a drab and windowless warehouse.

There were no other students or
sennin
about when they completed their rounds.

“I want you to stay here,” he told her, “while I go out on an errand.” She nodded in acquiescence. “Make no sound while I am gone and, especially, when I return.”

“What is happening?”

Without warning he hit her a heavy blow on the side of the face. Akiko staggered backward and fell on one hip. Saigō stood over her, his feet apart, his body totally relaxed.

“Do you wish to ask a question?” His voice was mocking, possessing an edge to it that caused Akiko to shudder inwardly. She made no sound or movement.

Grunting in some satisfaction, Saigō turned and departed.

When she was alone Akiko sank immediately into
shinki.
This involved keeping her
tanden
, that part of her called the second brain by some
sensei
, the reflex control center, immobile. In this way she detached a part of herself from the area where she burned. After a moment of intense concentration, she felt no more pain. Slowly she rose, staring at the door through which he had departed.

Of course she had felt the spit of his spirit microseconds before that vicious emanation had been transmogrified into physical action. She could have easily dodged the blow. But what good would that have done? Saigō’s anger would have been further fueled and he would have come after her with more serious intent.

Besides, she sensed that he was a man so unsure of his own masculinity that he needed to physically dominate those people around him, men and women alike. If she was ever to find an accommodation with him, she must first allow his natural tendencies to be made manifest to her. Only then could she choose her own strategy, and then could she tame him.

Saigō was gone several hours. During that time all light left the sky; the day burned out like the dregs of a Roman candle. It was dinnertime and Akiko found herself hungry. Since there was no food here she padded silently into the
dōjō
and, opening her bag, dressed in her all-black
gi.
She did forty minutes of centristic meditation leading ultimately to
shinki kiitsu
, the unity of soul, mind, and body that is so essential to reaching the very apex of all martial arts. She felt the weight of the universe collecting in her lower abdomen.
Shitahara.

She breathed. In:
jitsu
: fullness. Out:
kyo
: emptiness.
Strike at the precise moment you feel
kyo
in your enemy,
Sun Hsiung had said.
Strike at the precise moment you feel
jitsu
in yourself. Thus will victory be assured.

Yet,
he had told her over and over,
if you are so foolish and full of ego that you allow yourself to think of victory then you are undone. Attach your awareness on
saika tanden,
the breath of the Void. From that central nothingness all strategies may be observed and formulated.

She did ninety minutes of formal exercise, increasing in difficulty until she was sweating profusely, working on her quickness and her timing, coordinating the two: alternating them and then combining them in sets of three, then six, then nine rapid-fire attacks and defenses.

Then, because she was still a student, still learning, because some essentials still had to be thought about consciously rather than accomplished as second nature without any volition at all, she returned to
saika tanden.

From her bag she unfurled a length of strong cotton—it was Sun Hsiung’s only gift to her—which she folded twice and wrapped with deft economical movements about her abdomen so that the upper edge just touched the bottom ribs on either side. It was very tight; it was a cincture, a constraint. She worked on inhaling as deeply as she could down into her bowels. She sat cross-legged, her body soft and pliable, her shoulders curved and relaxed, her torso bent well forward so that the tip of her nose hung approximately over her navel.
Saika tanden.
Every breath she takes.

And breathing was what consumed her still when her keen hearing detected soft padding outside the metal door. In a moment the grate of the padlock could be heard.

Jitsu; kyo.
Fullness; emptiness. In and out.

She heard Saigō in the
dōjō
and her head came up. She focused fully on him.

“Get up,” he whispered. “Come here.” He stood just inside the closed door.

She did just as she was told, rising and unwrapping the cloth she treasured though it was quite plain and could be bought at any neighborhood store. Folding it reverently, she place it inside her loose black cotton blouse and moved to stand beside Saigō.

“Listen,” he said. His voice was as indistinct as the buzz of a mosquito in the distance. They both stood quite still. She would have known not to utter a sound even had he not cautioned her against doing so hours before.

There was nothing but the slight tickle of sawdust, a remnant of the original use to which this old building had been put. No sounds from the streets three stories below made it through the thick walls and massive floorboards. It was as silent as a tomb.

Someone coughed. And again. Akiko heard soft footfalls from behind the door. She glanced at Saigō, whose entire being was focused at the closed door and what lay beyond.

Who was there? Akiko wondered. She listened.

“What is it? Where are we?” A female voice, whispered.

“Come on.” Male voice. Then more insistently though no more loudly,
“Come on!”
Presence faded but Akiko had at least a semblance of the two spirits. Male and female. Yin and Yang.

Hate burned itself across Saigō’s face, turning him into a gargoyle. So much hate twisting him, she thought. Eating him up inside. Hate was an emotion that she could understand.

Perhaps it was at this moment that she saw them as soulmates: Akiko and Saigō. They were meant for each other, weren’t they?

After a while the chalkiness flushed from his face and he was about to speak again. But strangely, he said nothing further of the incident.

“You waited,” he said.

“Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” She watched his eyes, which were like dead stones at the bottom of a silkskinned lake. If it were true that the eyes were windows to the soul then Saigō had surely been born without one. She saw no anima there, only the gyring of emotions, dead weight like a corpse at the gibbet.

He nodded and she saw that he was pleased. He felt, wrongly, that his physical strike had caused her to acquiesce. Someone else of his personality type would have relaxed then, but he did not. Akiko noted that.

“It’s late,” he said. “Time to leave. Get dressed.”

He did not turn away as she got out of her
gi.
She felt his stony gaze on her at every moment, as she peeled down. She had never felt the intense sense of embarrassment about her naked body that most Japanese apparently did. Yet she was acutely conscious of Saigō’s presence, his scrutiny.

It was not prurience she felt from him, exactly, at least not in the sense of simple lust. That she would have had no trouble understanding. On the other hand, there was no sense of a cold, calculating inventory of all her parts being made. That too would have made some sense to her. He was of another type entirely, one with which she had had no prior experience.