The Miko - 02 (69 page)

One evening, perhaps a year and a half after she had first entered the castle, Kyōki summoned her to a room which she had never seen before. It was large and had an arching ceiling so high its upper reaches were lost in gloom. It was divided by an odd-looking doorway that had the aspect of a Chinese moon gate, almost circular in nature.

There were
tatami
, the first she had seen at
Yami Doko.
Kyōki knelt on one of these just beyond the arc of the moon gate. Before him was a lacquer tea service, a small plate piled with rice cakes.

Akiko bowed low and, doffing her boots, knelt opposite him. The moon gate rose above them and between them, the demarcation between
sensei
and pupil.

All was quiet in the room, all was serene. Akiko, questing as he had taught her to do, felt only the harmony of his
wa.
She watched him prepare the green tea; she had not known that he had these skills. She was mesmerized by the movements. She felt languid and calm. Almost at peace.

Kyōki put aside the whisk and, turning the porcelain cup one half a revolution, presented her with the steaming tea. He bowed low to her and she followed suit, extending her torso forward. Her forehead touched the
tatami
on the other side of the moon gate.

Whisper, as of silk against flesh or…

Galvanized, her adrenals pumping furiously, she tucked her head under and launched herself forward, rolling, ball-like, forward across the
tatami.

Behind her the metal blade hurtled downward from the apex of the moon gate arc, slicing through the reed mat at the precise spot where the exposed back of her neck had been a split second before, burying itself in the floor beneath.

Akiko bounded to her knees and stared wide-eyed at her
sensei
, who was calmly sipping at his tea.

“How?” she said wonderingly. “I felt not even the tiniest ripple in your
wa.
There was nothing…nothing at all.”

“This is why you are here,” Kyōki said simply. “
Jahō
masks my
wa.
”

“
Jahō
,” Akiko echoed. “Magic?”

The
sensei
shrugged. “Call it what you will. It goes by many names. Which one you use is unimportant.”

“It exists.”

“Were you aware of my intentions?”

“I might have died. Would you really have allowed that?”

“Once the blade is released I can no longer control it,” he said. “As always, you were the master of your own fate. And I am pleased to see you here beside me. You are not the first woman who has ever come here seeking that which was meant for man. Women, traditionally, seek to
control
power and in that way possess it. It is an oblique strategy; a
female
stratagem. In this way in our society a mother controls her son, a wife controls her husband. It is rare indeed for the woman to seek a more
direct
means; to possess absolute dominion over men through her own strength.

“As I have indicated, several have tried. All have failed. Perhaps, now, you will be the first
miko.
” He rose, held out his hand palm up. “Come. It is time we begin your true education.”

He was a face in the rain. She saw him and did not see him. He was there beside her and he was not. Quick as a
kami
, he flickered, a blazing light, and then was gone.

Though she had spent years with him, though he had held the key to her world, and had passed it on to her, there came a time when she began to doubt that she had ever been to
Yami Doko.

The Swiss Alps rose all about the vast chalet in which she lay swathed in pure white bandages. She could not see and most of the time there was nothing of interest to hear. She fed off her memories.

Kyōki became a dream, as insubstantial as smoke rising from a forest floor. But not what she had absorbed from him.

Every day white-suited nurses wheeled her outside into the thin sunshine for exactly forty minutes. The Swiss were as precise as the Japanese about some things. Schedules were one of them.

She remembered the moment the wild boar came crashing out of the underbrush to confront them. She stood her ground as the snorting creature bore down upon her. She was aware of the boar’s tusks, rough textured and oily looking, curving outward from that lowered jaw, set to impale her.

She made no move, however. Her spirit was like an untroubled lake. She opened her mouth. From it emanated a
kiai
known as
toate-no-ate
, the distant strike.

The boar spun in the air, emitting a high-pitched squeal, quickly cut off as if a powerful grip had been put on its throat. It fell heavily on its side and was still until, as Kyōki had taught her, she chose to end her shout.

She remembered the touch of Kyōki’s kimono against the back of her hand. The passage of his presence during long afternoons of sleep, when he seemed to stalk her dreams, as if even her sleep at
Yami Doko
was part of her training.

She longed for his lessons the way a young man longs for sex, aches for it, dreams about it, becomes, at length, obsessed with it.

There was a chasteness to their relationship which she could never remember having with a man before. He was not saintly; but she did not desire him. Because she lusted after what he possessed more. He had
jahō
, and she longed for that until it became her lover.

She remembered their parting. She had been with him seven years, which was a significant number to both of them; a magic number. It was time to return to the world and claim her revenge.

A face in the rain, flickering.

Behind her, she half suspected the castle to fall into ruin, disappearing amid new foliage magically springing up. Rain beat down on her shoulders in rhythm with the
komuso
’s melody. Before her, rabbits skittered out of her way and a lone hawk flew over the treetops, searching while it rode the inconstant currents.

Coming down off the frosty Asama
kogen
, mingling with tourists and Tokyo residents alike in the rolling parklands, it occurred to her that the person she missed most was Saigō, that Kyōki’s lessons had been her lover for seven years because Saigō could not be. She had deliberately put the thought of him aside so as not to torture herself.

He was no longer in Kumamoto, she was told by telephone, so she traveled to the outskirts of Tokyo, where he had told her his family lived.

She had had no contact with him in seven years, yet as the gleaming railroad took her toward her destination, it seemed to her no more than seven minutes. One inhalation of time. There was no space between them, no sense of change or alienation.

Occasionally, Saigō had spoken of his parents—and of course she had seen the devastation written across his face when he spoke of his father’s death—but nothing he had said prepared her for the splendor of that house.

For one thing it was large—a rare quality in Japanese homes; for another, it was surrounded by the most beautiful gardens and orchards. Space was so highly prized that Akiko was slightly stunned to see so much in the hands of one family.

Deeper was her surprise when she found that the “family” now consisted of Saigō’s mother and a dozen servants. No brothers or sisters, no other family members.

She was a diminutive woman with delicate bones and the beautiful commanding face of a
samurai
lady. Tradition meant a great deal to her.

As a welcomed traveler, Akiko was met at the door by a servant and escorted to a room where another servant unpacked her bags while a third led her to the bath. Afterward, she was fed broiled fluke fin in soy sauce, a superb cold seaweed salad, chicken
yakitori
, rice, and a pale gold tea the taste of which was unfamiliar to her.

By this time it was late in the evening. A fourth servant appeared when she was finished, led her back to her room, where her
futon
had been prepared for sleep. Thus she spent her first sixteen hours in the house without ever meeting her hostess.

The next morning Akiko arose and dressed in her best kimono, which, she observed sadly as she saw herself in the mirror, was not very fine at all. Her life up until now had left precious little room for her to be concerned with the niceties of being a woman.

The hems of both sleeves were threadbare, and the silk of which it was made was hardly of the finest quality.

By contrast, Itami was splendidly attired. But then, Akiko thought, she would be so even in the company of the greatest ladies in Japan.

They met in one of the sixteen-
tatami
rooms where Akiko was led as soon as she was dressed and properly coiffed. The young woman who had first seen her to her room had knocked quietly and politely on the
shōji
, entering only when she was bade, to kneel behind Akiko, spending almost an hour brushing, combing, and putting up her hair with the implements. Akiko had handed her the
tsuge
wood
kushi
that had been Ikan’s, the matching set of
kanzashi
that had been presented to her by Shimada.

Handed the mirror by the servant, Akiko was struck by how much she resembled her mother. How many years had it been since she had had her hair like this? She could not remember, could not even say whether she liked herself this way.

A tea set separated them, of superb workmanship and material of equal quality: the porcelain was translucent and as thin as skin. The intricacies of the ceremony Itami was performing with the tea served a dual purpose. It alleviated the tension and uncomfortableness strangers inevitably feel when first they meet. It also served to focus their attention on Zen, on the formation of harmony.

At the end of the ceremony, if they were not exactly friends, neither were they strangers.

“It pleases me that you have come,” Itami said. She had a pleasant, well-modulated voice and her manner, though formal in the sense of ancient tradition, was nevertheless fueled by a genuine warmth that served to put Akiko at her ease. “My son has spoken of you several times.” There was more that she wanted to say on this score, Akiko sensed.

“You have arrived at a fortuitous time,” Itami continued, “for while Saigō is not here, he is scheduled to arrive in a week’s time. You will stay, of course.”

“I could not think of intruding for so long,” Akiko said. “But I thank you for your offer.”

“An offer is nothing unless it is accepted,” Itami replied. “As you can see, this house is large—some might say overlarge for one woman. My days are sometimes lonely; one’s life can be filled with too much contemplation. It would please me greatly to have a companion. Will you favor me?”

“If you wish it, of course. I have never seen such a beautiful house. It is exhilarating to be here.”

“Now you are exaggerating,” Itami said, but Akiko could see that she was pleased by the genuine compliment.

Late in the afternoon of the next day, Itami said, “After poor Yukio’s untimely death, I was afraid that Saigō had turned his heart away from women. He loved her so; his spirit was crushed by her death. Of course, it came on top of my husband’s death and, well…he and Saigō were always very close.” And Akiko thought, filial piety binds us all, twisting us to its will.

She found herself liking the older woman immensely. She had contrived to make Akiko at home without voicing the usual battery of questions directed at the woman to whom a son is attracted: What is your family? Where do you come from? What is your father’s station? And his father’s? So on. Rather, Itami seemed content to accept Akiko at face value, and this touched Akiko deeply.

“Today,” Itami said, “all things are different. The time when the immutability of Japan was assured is gone. Modern times have assured that it will never come again.”

There was a silence then as the two women walked side by side through the groves of lemon and plum trees. Pink and white chrysanthemum bobbed their heads like a Greek chorus in the following breeze. Overhead, white clouds drifted, below which slate gray plovers swooped. The sun felt warm and comforting on their backs.

“Tomorrow my son comes home.” Itami had stopped to peer at a lizard basking on a rock. Akiko paused beside her. “Perhaps it would be best if you left early in the morning.”

Akiko studied the words as if she were an archaeologist who had stumbled over what might possibly be an important find. “I care about Saigō,” she said after a time. “Very much.”

“Yes,” Itami said. “I know. Still, I think best if you were not here when he arrived.”

“Why is that, Itami-san?”

The older woman turned to face her. “My son is evil, Akiko-san. Sometimes I think that it was a blessing that Yukio-san died so early, so tragically. I did not wish her involved with my son. When she met Nicholas Linnear I hoped that would be the end of it. But, like you, she came back to Saigō. I do not want the same mistake to be made twice.”

“Do you fear for my life, lady?”

Itami stared hard into Akiko’s face. “No, Akiko-san. I fear for your soul. My son is the bitterest of fruit; with his ideas he is a poisoner and it is best to stay away from him lest you, too, be poisoned.”

“It has not hurt me so far,” Akiko said lightly.

“It would be a mistake to make a joke of this, my dear.” Itami began to walk again. “If you decide to stay I will not seek to stop you. I have learned that nothing ever changes in this regard and that it is folly to attempt to turn the will of another. I could not do it with my husband or my son or even my sister-in-law. I have not the power, certainly, to do it to you. Still I speak from the heart and ask you to at least listen.”

Silence once again engulfed them, eventually to be broken by Akiko’s words. “Itami-san, I wish to see him.”

The older woman’s head bowed. “Of course you do, my child.”

Only the four of them were at the wedding: Saigō and Akiko, hand in hand, Itami, and the Shinto priest, who presided. The ceremony took place in the north garden, amid the scents of lemon and rose. The day was clear and bright as crystal. The sun was strong overhead, its warmth pouring down over them like a benediction.

Then Saigō took her away to Tokyo and she saw Itami only infrequently. She could not be at the funeral, when the body was shipped back from America in a sealed coffin that Itami did not want opened after she heard the account of how he died. But Itami wrote her, saying all she wanted now was to have him buried deep, next to his father who had loved him in a way that she could not, who had twisted his spirit in a way she could not forgive him for.