177155.fb2 The samurai strategy - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 11

The samurai strategy - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the aftermath of that evening down in Ise, Tam was convinced of only one fact. Nobody was giving her the straight story. Not Noda, not Mori, not Ken. And when she tried to talk supercomputers with MITI officials at the Kyoto conference. she again sensed she was hearing a runaround. Suddenly all she could get was Japan's public face, that version of reality Japanese executives call tatemae, superficial and soothing assurances, intended to promote the wa, harmony, so desirable in human affairs. When Japan doesn't care to give answers, hai no longer translates as "yes." It just means "I heard you."

Even more troublesome was the question of Ken. As best she could tell, he was merely a reluctant accomplice in Noda's grand design. But why was he going along with Dai Nippon if he was as apprehensive as he seemed? Ken, she concluded, knew a lot more about Matsuo Noda than he was saying.

So instead of giving them all an answer outright, she decided to spend a few days analyzing what she'd managed to piece together so far. As Noda had couched his proposition, it was simple: he was offering her a chance to do more than merely write prescriptions for America's economic recovery. She would guide it.

One thing, Matsuo Noda was no proponent of half measures. The way he laid out his scenario, it was visionary… no, revolutionary. After thinking over his proposal for a week, she still wasn't sure whether he was brilliant or a megalomaniac. Dai Nippon's program could conceivably change the course of world history, and the prospect of being at the helm of its juggernaut was seductive. All the same, what if Ken's hints were right? What if Noda did have something much grander in mind, something impossible even to imagine. When you ride the whirlwind, who's really in charge?

In between her visits to the conference she spent some time at DNI's Kyoto offices getting acquainted with Noda's operation-the computers, fiber-optic links, analysts. Very impressive. Although Dai Nippon was technically only a shell corporation, all Matsuo Noda had to do was pick up a phone to have at his disposal the expertise of any one of a hundred Japanese corporate brain trusts. Half of Japan's new high-tech movers, it seemed, owed him some kind of "obligation." Given that, and all the money, he could well be unstoppable.

Also, the austerity of Dai Nippon's offices reminded her once again that none of Japan's new power was accidental. The discipline of the samurai. It was almost as though this country had been in training for centuries, toughening itself through self-denial and work-as-duty to be ready for an all-out economic blitz. Now, finally, Japan had an edge on the entire world. More technology and more money.

Was Noda about to just give away that edge? The implausibility made her certain something was missing.

Late that Friday, the conference over, she and Ken packed their bags and checked out of the International. But after they'd shoved their way through the usual pandemonium in the lobby and hailed a cab, he gave the driver the name of a place on Shinmonzen Street, the antique district. Not the train station. When she tried to correct him, he waved his hand and said he'd arranged for a surprise.

"Tam, the International always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It has nothing to do with Japan. It could be anywhere, just like some Hilton next to a freeway." He smiled and lightly patted her hand. "Let's not go back to Tokyo just yet. Please. This weekend let's stay at a place where nothing will exist but you and me, not even time."

"Just turn off the clocks?" Sounded like a great idea.

"Well, now and then it's nice to turn them down a bit, don't you think?" He laughed self-consciously. "That's a contradiction about me you'll someday have to get used to. I like a high-tech office, but when I'm away I prefer to be surrounded by things that are very, very old." He leaned back. "Indulge me. Let me show you my favorite spot in all of Kyoto. A place time forgot."

This is going to be quite a trick, she told herself. Very little was left from years past. Maybe the city hadn't been bombed out during the war, but the blitz of urban renewal was rapidly accomplishing much the same result. Through the light of dusk, construction cranes loomed above the few remaining thatched roofs of neighborhoods about to be overwhelmed by steel, glass, cinderblock.

Kenji Asano, it turned out, deplored this immensely. As they rode along, he pointed out the latest construction sites with the sorrow of a man documenting the end of civilization.

"This, we hear, is the price of progress. I'm always tempted to ask, progress toward what?" He leaned back with a sigh and lit a Peace cigarette, nonfilter. "Someday I think we may have to ask ourselves if this modern world we've created for ourselves was actually worth the toll it's taken on our sensibilities."

Eventually their taxi pulled into a narrow side street, edging past a few women carrying small bundles of groceries bound in scarves, then easing to a stop before the ramshackle bamboo gates of a place that seemed abandoned to foliage and vines.

The driver helped carry their bags in through the gates and up the rocky, hedge-lined pathway leading to a wooden veranda. Ahead was a thatch-roofed, weathered house shrouded by towering elms. As they approached, an elderly woman in a dark kimono emerged from the recesses of the interior. She sang out a welcome, bowed deeply, and produced two pairs of leather slippers with an air of ritual solemnity. They were expected.

Off went the street shoes, on went the slippers as they melted into a world that would have been perfectly natural four centuries ago. When they passed the "lobby"-off to the side, tatami-floored, with a few ancient screens scattered about-Tam noticed that there appeared to be no "desk." But there was also no "check in"; the proprietress clearly knew the honorable Asano-san. She also must have known he was with MITI, since her honorifics soared into the upper reaches of politeness as she guided them along the interior hallway.

Tam realized they were in a traditional Japanese inn, a ryokan, surely the last vestige of classical Japan. As they moved out onto another veranda, this one circling a central garden and pond, the place appeared to be totally empty. The woodland vista in the center hinted of infinity, with stone paths and a wide pool dotted with shapely rocks. Although there were a dozen or so closed doors along the wooden platform, the inn seemed to be there solely for them. In the cool dusk clumps of willows across the pond masked the view of the other side, furthering the illusion that they had the place all to themselves. It couldn't be true, though, since chambermaids in kimono darted here and there balancing lacquered dinner trays.

When they reached the end of the veranda, their hostess paused before a set of shoji screens, knelt, and pushed aside the rice-paper covered frames to reveal a room entirely bare except for a low lacquer table. Well, not quite: on the back wall was the traditional picture alcove, tokonoma, in which a seventeenth-century ink-wash scroll hung above a weathered vase holding three spare blossoms. Their room had no keys, no clocks, no television. It was a cocoon for the spirit, a place of textured woods, crisp tatami, lacquer, and rice-paper.

The woman deposited their bags on the black-bordered tatami, consulted briefly with Ken concerning dinner, then backed, bowing, out of the room, leaving them alone together in another time.

"Ken, this is perfect. I needed someplace like this."

"We both did." He embraced her. "They're running our tub now. Afterward I have another surprise for you."

"What?"

"Allow me some mystery."

Whatever he had planned, she couldn't wait to throw off her clothes, don a loose cotton yukata robe, and pad with him down to the little wood-lined room where their steaming bath awaited. The floor was red tile, the walls scented Chinese black pine, the massive tub cedar with rivulets of steam escaping through cracks in its cypress cover.

While they perched on little stools beside the tub, he soaped her back, occasionally dousing her with the bucket of lukewarm water. Then she did the same for him, watching half mesmerized as the soapy bubbles flowed off his shoulders, broad and strong. Almost like an athlete's. Finally they climbed in, and amidst the cloud of vapor her last remaining tensions melted away.

"You know, I think of you every time I come to Kyoto, wanting to lure you back." He reached for the brush and began to gently massage her neck. "I honestly never dreamed Matsuo Noda would come along and try to hire you." He paused. "I wish I could help you make your decision. But the most I can do is warn you to be careful."

What are you telling me? she wondered.

"Ken, you seem troubled about something. What is it?"

"Tamara, powerful forces are at play here, beyond the control of either of us. Things may not always be what they seem. Just be aware of that. But please don't ask me any more. Just look out for yourself."

"I've had a lifetime of looking out for myself. I can handle Matsuo Noda."

"Just don't ever underestimate him. He's not like anyone you've ever known before. The man is pure genius, probably the most visionary, powerful mind in the history of this country. You've met your match."

"That remains to be seen." She leaned back. Ken was challenging her now. On purpose? Maybe he figured that was the only bait she would rise to. He wanted her to play along with Noda, but he wouldn't tell her why.

After they'd simmered to medium rare, heading for well done, they climbed out, toweled each other off, slipped back into their yukatas once again, and glided back to the room. She noticed that an interior screen had been pushed aside, opening onto another tatami room where a thin futon mattress had already been unrolled and prepared with white sheets and a thick brocade coverlet. Hot tea waited on their little lacquer table, but their bags had disappeared. She checked behind a pair of sliding doors and saw that all her things had been neatly shelved by some invisible caretaker. Even the clothes she'd been wearing were already hung in the closet.

"Now for my surprise." He was slipping on a black silk kimono. "They have a special little garden here that only a few people know about. I've arranged everything."

"Shouldn't I change too for whatever it is we're doing?"

"Theoretically, yes. But formality doesn't suit you." He cinched his obi. "Come on. You can be formally informal."

He led the way to the end of the veranda where they each put on the wooden clogs that were waiting. Then they passed through a bamboo gate into yet another landscape, this one lit by candles set in stone lanterns. At the back stood a small one-room structure of thatch, reed, and unfinished wood. A teahouse.

"Tam, can you sit here for a second, in the waiting shelter?" He indicated a bench just inside the gate under a thatch overhang. "I'll only need a few minutes to prepare."

Off he went, clogs clicking along a string of stones nestled in among the mossy floor of the garden. He was following the roji, the "dewy path" that led to the teahouse half hidden among the trees at the back.

Unlike the ryokan' s larger garden, this one had no water; it was meant to recall a mountain walk. The space was small, with natural trees, offering no illusion of being more than it was. But it was a classic setting for tea, a kind of deliberate "poverty." While she watched the flickering stone lanterns and listened to the night crickets, the cacophony of Kyoto could have been eons away.

Finally Ken appeared beside the doorway of the teahouse and signaled her forward. As she moved along the stepping stones, she noticed that the pathway had been swept clean of falling leaves, after which the gardener had strewn a few back to give it wabi, an unaffected natural look. The art of artlessness, she thought, as she paused at a stone water basin to rinse her mouth from its bamboo dipper, part of the preparatory ritual.

The cha-no-yu or "tea ceremony," she knew, required almost a lifetime to master completely. It was a seated ballet of nuance and perfect clarity of motion. One awkward gesture and its carefully orchestrated perfection could be spoiled. She hoped she could remember the rules well enough to get it right.

Ken was already seated across from her, tending a small charcoal brazier sunk into the tatami-matted floor. From its light she could just make out the room's rough-hewn timbers, the straw and mud walls, bark and bamboo ceiling. A small calligraphy scroll hung in the tokonoma alcove. As he beckoned her formally to sit, the room was caught in an unearthly silence, the only sound the sonorous boiling of the kettle.

Ken was profoundly transformed, almost like another being. Warm and attentive only minutes before, now he was part of a different world, solemn and remote. The black silk of his kimono seemed to enforce the seriousness in his dark eyes.

She watched as he ritually wiped a thin, delicately curved bamboo scoop with a folded cloth, first touching the handle, then the uptilted end, after which he balanced it atop the lacquer tea caddy. Next he lifted the tea bowl, an earth-tone glaze that shifted from mauve to brown as he rotated it in his hand and wiped the rim. Finally he swabbed the bottom and positioned the bowl on the tatami in front of him. Now the utensils had been formally cleansed. He was ready. From the tea caddy he spooned a mound of jade-green powdered tea and tapped it into the bowl. Then another, this last with a carefully prescribed twist of the scoop.

Next he extracted a dipperful of boiling water from the iron kettle and measured a portion into the bowl, lifted the bamboo whisk sitting inverted beside the bowl, and commenced a vigorous blending. The tea immediately began to resemble a pale green lather. Still no words, no sound save the whir of his whisk intruded upon the quiet of the room. It was a moment hundreds of years old, framed in silence.

The economy of ideal form. That, she found herself thinking, was what this was all about: how flawlessly could you perform what seemed the most simple, humble act. And he was good. Whereas the mastery in his hands revealed itself by the control with which he whipped the tea, the rest of his body remained taut as a spring. Total discipline. Each tiny motion was distilled to its crystalline essence.

At last, when the green froth was ready, he gave the whisk a final half-turn, then set it aside. Next he lifted the bowl, rotated it in his hand, and placed it on the mat beside the open charcoal fire.

His part was over. It was as though the authority had been passed. Ken had prepared the work; now it was her turn to take up and finish it. Her role was different yet required its own kind of skill.

She bent forward and ceremonially shifted the bowl a short distance toward her. Then she scooted backward on the tatami and again moved the bowl closer. Was she doing it right? The flicker in Ken's eyes said yes.

Finally, with a bow of acknowledgment, she raised the bowl in both hands and brought it to her lips. After her first sip she bowed again, then drank it down as he watched in silent approval. The powdered green tea was harsh and bitter, just as she remembered from times past. Even for a Japanese it was difficult to feign appreciation of the musky beverage produced in the cha-no-yu.

She recalled what was next. With deliberate dignity she extracted a small napkin from the obi of her loose yukata, wiped the rim of the bowl, and placed it carefully onto the tatami in front of her. The motion had to be quick, spare. Ken didn't try to disguise his pleasure; she had passed some sort of crucial test.

And she told herself, he had too.

Together they had joined in one of the most demanding yet exquisite bonds two people can share. At that moment she felt-was it imagination?-like an ancient Fujiwara, celebrating some age-old tradition…

The ceremony was over now. She bowed again, then lifted the bowl to admire the light crackle in the glaze, the slightly inturned lip.

"It's Raku. I think it's the finest I've ever seen."

"From my collection. It's by the hand of Chojiro, the seventeenth-century Korean who was in the employ of the Shogun Hideyoshi." He smiled. "I had it brought down to Kyoto especially for tonight. For you."

"I'm honored." She was.

After she had admired the rest of the utensils-the remaining formality of cha-no-yu-they both relaxed, their minds purged, their spirits attuned. Like the ceremony itself, the moment was esthetic and sensual.

"Tam, this has been a wonderful rebirth for me, being with you again. You've helped revive in me so many feelings I'd almost forgotten. The joy of it all. Who could have known?" He leaned back and reached for a flask of plum wine. Formalities were definitely over. "As someone once wrote, 'Love. Its roots are deep. Its source unknowable.'" He was pouring two small glasses.

"That's from the Tsurezuregusa, fourteenth century. Right?"

"Again you amaze me. You really are Japanese."

"I like the poetry."

"Then you know, Tam, our poets excel in feeling. We've always celebrated emotion over logic." He smiled. "Which one said, 'Love is the passion in the heart of man-those who will not listen to reason'?"

"What does reason have to do with love?" She took a glass. "Didn't Shakespeare say 'love and reason keep little company together'?"

"My turn. That's from Midsummer Night's Dream, which was… sixteenth century. You're pulling out the moderns on me." He laughed with delight. "You know, in Heian times, eight hundred years ago here in Kyoto, I'd be expected to make a linked verse about the night now." He looked out the doorway, then back. "How about… The moon in veil, Perfumed with night, Who can deny love At a time like this?"

Then his visage quickened, another mood switch. His eyes mellowed as he turned and carefully lifted the bud from the vase behind him. It was a camellia, purest white. He held it before him as he turned back, its long stem still dripping.

"You know, there's a haiku by Basho I love very much. Let me give it in Japanese… a haiku only sounds right in the original. time ga ka ni notto hi no deru yama ji kana."

She paused to let the meaning sink in, to feel that open- ended sensation a good haiku always sends your imagination spinning off into. "How's this for the English? With the scent of plums on the mountain road-suddenly, sunrise comes."

"Not bad." He glanced at the blossom in his hand. "I don't know why, but the camellia makes me think of you." He rotated it carefully, then looked back. "Let's dedicate tonight to our own sunrise."

He inspected the flower again, then impulsively leaned forward and placed it onto the tatami in front of her. Next, with the same control in his powerful hands that had touched the glaze of the tea bowl, he gently gripped the shoulders of her loose yukata. She felt her body flush with warmth as slowly, gently, his strength once more held in check, he carefully slid back the cloth off her shoulders until her breasts were free. Then plucking a petal from the bud, he reverently brushed one nipple, then the other.

It was an erotic game she knew he loved, one of many. Games. Sometimes she had imagined them inhabiting an eighteenth-century shunga, those woodblock prints picturing lovers in what she had once thought impossible embraces.

He'd once declared that the kimono was actually the most sensual garment in the world. Take a look at some of the shunga, he said, and the possibilities become obvious. Though it seems cumbersome, entangling, yet it lifts away like a stage curtain to invite all sorts of dramatic possibilities. The human nude is only interesting when half concealed.

Games. She reached and took the petal from him, then ran it along the silk of his own kimono, over his muscular thighs as he sat, Japanese-style, feet back. Next she lifted away the silk from the flawless ivory skin she knew so well. She drew it along his thighs to tease him.

"Tam…" He reached to slip away her yukata, but she caught his hand. Then she touched his lips with her fingers, silencing his protest. She pushed away his kimono and trailed the petal upward, lightly brushing his own nipples. Finally she pushed him gently backward and smoothed her cheek against his thigh, drawing back his kimono even more.

The glow of the coals was dying now. As the last shadows played against his face, she laid the petal on the tatami and moved across him…

They lingered till the moon was up, then strolled back through the garden wearing their antique wooden clogs. The air was scented, musical with the sounds of night. Later that evening they downed an eight-course meal off antique stoneware plates, drank steaming sake on the veranda, then made love for hours on the futon.

Around midnight he ordered one more small bottle of sake, a go, and suggested they move out onto the veranda again, this time to watch the moon break over the trees. She slipped on her yukata and padded out. She'd just decided.

"Tamara, I want to tell you something." He poured her small porcelain cup to the brim. "You are everything Matsuo Noda is seeking. The way you held the tea bowl tonight, tasted the tea. The cha-no-yu doesn't lie. You have discipline, our discipline. That's very, very rare."

"You mean, 'for a gaijin'?"

"For anyone. Besides, I don't think of you that way. You are one of us now."

She looked into his eyes, dark in the moonlight. Then she remembered the tokonoma alcove in the teahouse where a rugged vase had held the single white bud, its few petals moist as though from dew. Not a bouquet, a single bud-all the flowers in the world distilled into that one now poised to burst open.

Kenji Asano lived that special intensity, that passion, which set Japan apart from the rest of the world.

"Ken." Her voice was quiet. "I'll do it."

"You mean Noda?"

"Noda."

He said nothing for a moment, then finally he spoke.

"The game begins."