Shibumi (21 page)

An hour later, having had a light breakfast, the three of them knelt around a low table on which were the rolled-up deed to the house and a rather informally worded paper Nicholai had drawn up giving his possessions and furnishings to the two of them equally. He informed them that he would leave later that afternoon, probably never to return. There would be difficulty; there would be strangers asking questions and making life complicated for a few days; but after that it was not likely that the foreigners would concern themselves with the little household. Nicholai did not have much money, as he spent most of what he earned as it came in. What little he had was wrapped in cloth on the table. If Mr. Watanabe and Mrs. Shimura could not earn enough to support the house, he gave them permission to sell it and use the income as they would. It was Mrs. Shimura who insisted that they set aside a portion as dowry for the Tanaka sisters.

When this was settled, they took tea together and talked of business details. Nicholai had hoped to avoid the burden of silence, but soon their modest affairs were exhausted, and there was nothing more to say.

A cultural blemish of the Japanese is their discomfort with genuine expression of emotions. Some tend to mask feelings with stoic silence or behind the barricade of polite good form. Others hide in emotional hyperbole, in extravagances of gratitude or sorrow.

It was Mrs. Shimura who anchored herself in silence, while Mr. Watanabe wept uncontrollably.

With the same excessive consideration of security as yesterday, the four guards stood along the wall on the door side of the small visitors’ room. The two Japanese looked tense and uncomfortable; the American MP yawned in boredom; and the stocky Russian seemed to daydream, which certainly he was not doing. Early in his conversation with Kishikawa-san, Nicholai had tested the guards, speaking first in Japanese. It was clear that the American did not understand, but he was less sure of the Russian, so he made up a nonsense statement and read a slight frown on the broad brow. When Nicholai shifted to French, losing the Japanese guards, but not the Russian, he was sure this man was no common soldier, despite his appearance of Slavic intellectual viscosity. It was necessary, therefore, to find another code in which, to speak, and he chose the cryptography of Gô, reminding the General, as he took out the small magnetic board, that Otake-san had always used the idioticon of his beloved game when discussing important things.

“Do you want to continue the game, sir?” Nicholai asked. “The fragrance has gone bad:
Aji ga warui.”

Kishikawa-san looked up in mild confusion. They were only four or five plays into the game; this was a most peculiar thing to say.

Three plays passed in silence before the General began to glimpse what Nicholai might have meant. He tested this out by saying, “It seems to me that the game is in
korigatachi,
that I am frozen into position without freedom of development.”

“Not quite, sir. I see the possibility of a
sabaki,
but of course you would join the
hama.”

“Isn’t that dangerous for you? Isn’t it in fact a
ko
situation?”

“More a
uttegae,
in truth. And I see nothing else for your honor—and mine.”

“No, Nikko. You are too kind. I cannot accept the gesture. For you such a play would be a most dangerous aggression, a suicidal
de.”

“I am not asking your permission. I could not put you in that impossible position. Having decided how I shall play it, I am explaining the configuration to you. They believe they have
tsuru no sugomori.
In fact they face a
seki.
They intended to drive you to the wall with a
shicho,
but I have the privilege of being your
shicho atari.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nicholai saw one of the Japanese guards frown. Obviously he played a bit, and he realized this conversation was nonsense.

Nicholai reached across the rough wooden table and placed his hand on the General’s arm. “Foster-father, the game will end in two minutes. Permit me to guide you.”

Tears of gratitude stood in Kishikawa-san’s eyes. He seemed more frail than before, both very old and rather childlike. “But I cannot permit…”

“I act without permission, sir. I have decided to perform a loving disobedience. I do not even seek your forgiveness.”

After a moment of consideration, Kishikawa-san nodded. A slight smile squeezed the tears from his eyes and sent one down each side of his nose. “Guide me, then.”

“Turn your head and look out the window, sir. It is all overcast and damp, but soon the season of the cherry will be with us.”

Kishikawa-san turned his head and looked calmly out into the rectangle of moist gray sky. Nicholai took a lead pencil from his pocket and held it lightly between his fingers. As he spoke, he concentrated on the General’s temple where a slight pulse throbbed under the transparent skin.

“Do you recall when we walked beneath the blossoms of Kajikawa, sir? Think of that. Remember walking there years before with your daughter, her hand small in yours. Remember walking with your father along the same bank, your hand small in his. Concentrate on these things.”

Kishikawa-san lowered his eyes and reposed his mind, as Nicholai continued speaking quietly, the lulling drone of his voice more important than the content. After a few moments, the General looked at Nicholai, the hint of a smile creasing the corners of his eyes. He nodded. Then he turned again to the gray, dripping scene beyond the window.

As Nicholai continued to talk softly, the American MP was engrossed in dislodging a bit of something from between his teeth with his fingernail; but Nicholai could feel tension in the attitude of the brighter of the Japanese guards, who was bewildered and uncomfortable with the tone of this conversation. Suddenly, with a shout, the Russian “guard” leapt forward.

He was too late.

For six hours Nicholai sat in the windowless interrogation room after surrendering himself without struggle or explanation to the stunned, confused, and therefore violent guards. In his first fury the American MP sergeant had hit him twice with his truncheon, once on the point of the shoulder, once across the face, splitting his eyebrow against the sharp bone behind it. There was little pain, but the eyebrow bled profusely, and Nicholai suffered from the messy indignity of it.

Frightened by anticipation of repercussions for allowing their prisoner to be killed under their eyes, the guards screamed threats at Nicholai as they raised the alarm and summoned the prison doctor. When he arrived, there was nothing the fussy, uncertain Japanese doctor could do for the General, who had been nerve-dead seconds after Nicholai’s strike, and body-dead within a minute. Shaking his head and sucking breaths between his teeth, as though admonishing a mischievous child, the doctor attended to Nicholai’s split eyebrow, relieved to have something to do within the scope of his competence.

While two fresh Japanese guards watched over Nicholai, the others reported to their superiors, giving versions of the event that showed them to be blameless, while their opposite numbers were revealed to be something between incompetent and perfidious.

When the MP sergeant returned, he was accompanied by three others of his nationality; no Russians, no Japanese. Dealing with Nicholai was to be an American show.

In grim silence, Nicholai was searched and stripped, dressed in the same coarse “suicide-proof” uniform the General had worn, and brought down the hall to be left, barefoot and with his wrists handcuffed behind his back, in the stark interrogation room, where he sat in silence on a metal chair bolted to the floor.

To subdue his imagination, Nicholai focused his mind on the middle stages of a famous contest between Gô masters of the major schools, a game he had memorized as a part of his training under Otake-san. He reviewed the placements, switching by turns from one point of view to the other, examining the implications of each. The considerable effort of memory and concentration was sufficient to close out the alien and chaotic world around him.

There were voices beyond the door, then the sound of keys and bolts, and three men entered. One was the MP sergeant who had been industriously picking his teeth when Kishikawa-san died. The second was a burly man in civilian dress whose porcine eyes had that nervous look of superficial intelligence thinned by materialistic insensitivity one sees in politicians, film producers, and automobile salesmen. The third, the leaves of a major on his shoulders, was a taut, intense man with large bloodless lips and drooping lower eyelids. It was this third who occupied the chair opposite Nicholai, while the burly civilian stood behind Nicholai’s chair, and the sergeant stationed himself near the door.

“I am Major Diamond.” The officer smiled, but there was a flat tone to his accent, that metallic mandibular sound that blends the energies of the garment district with overlays of acquired refinement—the kind of voice one associates with female newscasters in the United States.

At the moment of their arrival, Nicholai had been puzzling over a move in the recalled master game that had the fragrance of a
tenuki,
but which was in fact a subtle reaction to the opponent’s preceding play. Before looking up, he concentrated on the board, freezing its patterns in his memory so he could return to it later. Only then did he lift his expressionless bottle-green eyes to the Major’s face.

“What did you say?”

“I am Major Diamond, CID.”

“Oh?” Nicholai’s indifference was not feigned.

The Major opened his attaché case and drew out three typed sheets stapled together. “If you will just sign this confession, we can get on with it.”

Nicholai glanced at the paper. “I don’t think I want to sign anything.”

Diamond’s lips tightened with irritation. “You’re denying murdering General Kishikawa?”

“I am not denying anything. I helped my friend to his escape from…” Nicholai broke off. What was the point of explaining to this man something his mercantile culture could not possibly comprehend? “Major, I don’t see any value in continuing this conversation.”

Major Diamond glanced toward the burly civilian behind Nicholai, who leaned over and said, “Listen. You might as well sign the confession. We know all about your activities on behalf of the Reds’”

Nicholai did not bother to look toward the man.

“You’re not going to tell us you haven’t been in contact with a certain Colonel Gorbatov?” the civilian persisted.

Nicholai took a long breath and did not answer. It was too complicated to explain; and it didn’t matter if they understood or not.

The civilian gripped Nicholai’s shoulder. “You’re in maximum trouble, boy! Now, you’d better sign this paper, or—”

Major Diamond frowned and shook his head curtly, and the civilian released his grip. The Major put his hands on his knees and leaned forward, looking into Nicholai’s eyes with worried compassion. “Let me try to explain all this to you. You’re confused right now, and that’s perfectly understandable. We know the Russians are behind this murder of General Kishikawa. I’ll admit to you that we don’t know why. That’s one of the things we want you to help us with. Let me be open and frank with you. We know you’ve been working for the Russians for some time. We know you infiltrated a most sensitive area in Sphinx/FE with forged papers. A Russian identity card was found on you, together with an American one. We also know that your mother was a communist and your father a Nazi; that you were in Japan during the war; and that your contacts included militarist elements of the Japanese government. One of these contacts was with this Kishikawa.” Major Diamond shook his head and sat back. “So you see, we know rather a lot about you. And I’m afraid it’s all pretty damning. That’s what my associate means when he says that you’re in great trouble. It’s possible that I may be able to help you… if you are willing to cooperate with us. What do you say?”

Nicholai was overwhelmed by the irrelevance of all this. Kishikawa-san was dead; he had done what a son must do; he was ready to face punishment; the rest didn’t matter.

“Are you denying what I have said?” the Major asked.

“You have a handful of facts, Major, and from them you have made ridiculous conclusions.”

Diamond’s lips tightened. “Our information came from Colonel Gorbatov himself.”

“I see.” So Gorbatov was going to punish him for snatching away his propaganda prey by giving the Americans certain half-truths and allowing them to do his dirty work. How Slavic in its duplicity, in its involute obliquity.

“Of course,” Diamond continued, “we don’t take everything the Russians tell us at face value. That’s why we want to give you a chance to tell us your side of the story.”

“There is no story.”

The civilian touched his shoulder again. “You deny that you knew General Kishikawa during the war?”

“No.”

“You deny that he was a part of the Japanese military/industrial machine?”

“He was a soldier.” The more accurate response would have been that he was a warrior, but that distinction would have meant nothing to these Americans with their mercantile mentalities.

“Do you deny being close to him?” the civilian pursued.

“No.”

Major Diamond took up the questioning, his lone and expression indicating that he was honestly uncertain and sought to understand. “Your papers
were
forged, weren’t they, Nicholai?”

“Yes.”

“Who helped you obtain forged papers?”

Nicholai was silent.

The Major nodded and smiled. “I understand. You don’t want to implicate a friend. I understand that. Your mother was Russian, wasn’t she?”

“Her nationality was Russian. There was no Slavic blood in her.”

The civilian cut in. “So you admit that your mother was a communist?”

Nicholai found a bitter humor in the thought of Alexandra Ivanovna being a communist. “Major, to the degree my mother took any interest in politics—a very modest degree indeed—she was to the political right of Attila.” He repeated “Attila” again, mispronouncing it with an accent on the second syllable, so the Americans would understand.