Shibumi (9 page)

“I shall help you with your Japanese, if you wish,” Kishikawa-san said. “But first, let us see if you are an interesting opponent at Gô.”

Nicholai was given a four-stone handicap, and they played a quick, time-limit game, as the General had a full day of work tomorrow. Soon they were absorbed, and Alexandra Ivanovna, who could never see much point in social events of which she was not the center, complained of feeling a bit faint and retired.

The General won, but not as easily as he should have. As he was a gifted amateur capable of giving professionals close combat with minimum handicaps, he was greatly impressed by Nicholai’s peculiar style of play.

“How long have you been playing Gô?” he asked, speaking in French to relieve Nicholai of the task of alien expression.

“Oh, four or five years, I suppose, sir.”

The General frowned. “Five years? But… how old are you?”

“Thirteen, sir. I know I look younger than I am. It’s a family trait.”

Kishikawa-san nodded and smiled to himself as he thought of Alexandra Ivanovna who, when she had filled out her identity papers for the Occupation Authority, had taken advantage of this “family trait” by blatantly setting down a birth date that suggested she had been the mistress of a White Army general at the age of eleven and had given birth to Nicholai while still in her teens. The General’s intelligence service had long ago apprised him of the facts concerning the Countess, but he allowed her this trivial gesture of coquetry, particularly considering what he knew of her unfortunate medical history.

“Still, even for a man of thirteen, you play a remarkable game, Nikko.” During the course of the game, the General had manufactured this nickname that allowed him to avoid the troublesome
“l.”
It remained forever his name for Nicholai. “I suppose you have not had any formal training?”

“No, sir. I have never had any instruction at all. I learned from reading books.”

“Really? That is unheard of.”

“Perhaps so, sir. But I am very intelligent.”

For a moment, the General examined the lad’s impassive face, its absinthe eyes frankly returning the officer’s gaze. “Tell me, Nikko. Why did you choose to study Gô? It is almost exclusively a Japanese game. Certainly none of your friends played the game. They probably never even heard of it.”

“That is precisely why I chose Gô, sir.”

“I see.” What a strange boy. At once both vulnerably honest and arrogant. “And has your reading given you to understand what qualities are necessary to be a fine player?”

Nicholai considered for a moment before answering. “Well, of course one must have concentration. Courage. Self-control. That goes without saying. But more important than these, one must have… I don’t know how to say it. One must be both a mathematician and a poet. As though poetry were a science; or mathematics an art. One must have an affection for proportion to play Gô at all well. I am not expressing myself well, sir. I’m sorry.”

“On the contrary. You are doing very well in your attempt to express the inexpressible. Of these qualities you have named, Nikko, where do you believe your own strengths lie?”

“In the mathematics, sir. In concentration and self-control.”

“And your weaknesses?”

“In what I called poetry.”

The General frowned and glanced away from the boy. It was strange that he should recognize this. At his age, he should not be able to stand outside himself and report with such detachment. One might expect Nikko to realize the need for certain Western qualities to play Gô well, qualities like concentration, self-control, courage. But to recognize the need for the receptive, sensitive qualities he called poetry was outside that linear logic that is the Western mind’s strength… and limitation. But then—considering that Nicholai was born of the best blood of Europe but raised in the crucible of China—was he really Western? Certainly he was not Oriental either. He was of no racial culture. Or was it better to think of him as the sole member of a racial culture of his own?

“You and I share that weakness, sir.” Nicholai’s green eyes crinkled with humor. “We both have weaknesses in the area I called poetry.”

The General looked up in surprise. “Ah?”

“Yes, sir. My play lacks much of this quality. Yours has too much of it. Three times during the game you relented in your attack. You chose to make the graceful play, rather than the conclusive one.”

Kishikawa-san laughed softly. “How do you know I was not considering your age and relative inexperience?”

“That would have been condescending and unkind, and I don’t believe you are those things.” Nicholai’s eyes smiled again. “I am sorry, sir, that there are no honorifics in French. It must make my speech sound abrupt and insubordinate.”

“Yes, it does a little. I was just thinking that, in fact.”

“I am sorry, sir.”

The General nodded. “I assume you have played Western chess?”

Nicholai shrugged. “A little. It doesn’t interest me.”

“How would you compare it with Gô?”

Nicholai thought for a second. “Ah… what Gô is to philosophers and warriors, chess is to accountants and merchants.”

“Ah! The bigotry of youth. It would be more kind, Nikko, to say that Gô appeals to the philosopher in any man, and chess to the merchant in him.”

But Nicholai did not recant. “Yes, sir, that would be more kind. But less true.”

The General rose from his cushion, leaving Nicholai to replace the stones. “It is late, and I need my sleep. We’ll play again soon, if you wish.”

“Sir?” said Nicholai, as the General reached the door.

“Yes?”

Nicholai kept his eyes down, shielding himself from the hurt of possible rejection. “Are we to be friends, sir?”

The General gave the question the consideration its serious tone requested. “That could be, Nikko. Let us wait and see.”

It was that very night that Alexandra Ivanovna, deciding at last that General Kishikawa was not of the fabric of the men she had known in the past, came to tap at his bedroom door.

For the next year and half, they lived as a family. Alexandra Ivanovna became more subdued, more contented, perhaps a little plumper. What she lost in effervescence she gained in an attractive calm that caused Nicholai, for the first time in his life, to like her. Without haste, Nicholai and the General constructed a relationship that was as profound as it was undemonstrative. The one had never had a father; the other, a son. Kishikawa-san was of a temperament to enjoy guiding and shaping a clever, quick-minded young man, even one who was occasionally too bold in his opinions, too confident of his attributes.

Alexandra Ivanovna found emotional shelter in the lee of the General’s strong, gentle personality. He found spice and amusement in her flashes of temperament and wit. Between the General and the woman—politeness, generosity, gentleness, physical pleasure. Between the General and the boy—confidence, honesty, ease, affection, respect.

Then one evening after dinner, Alexandra Ivanovna joked as usual about the nuisance of her swooning fits and retired early to bed… where she died.

Now the sky is black to the east, purple over China. Out in the floating city the orange and yellow lanterns are winking out, as people make up beds on the canted decks of sampans heeled over in the mud. The air has cooled on the dark plains of inland China, and breezes are no longer drawn in from the sea. The curtains no longer billow inward as the General balances his stone on the nail of his index finger, his mind ranging far from the game before him.

It is two months since Alexandra Ivanovna died, and the General has received orders transferring him. He cannot take Nicholai with him, and he does not want to leave him in Shanghai where he has no friends and where his lack of formal citizenship denies him even the most rudimentary diplomatic protection. He has decided to send the boy to Japan.

The General examines the mother’s refined face, expressed more economically, more angularly in the boy. Where will he find friends, this young man? Where will he find soil appropriate to his roots, this boy who speaks six languages and thinks in five, but who lacks the smallest fragment of useful training? Can there be a place in the world for him?

“Sir?”

“Yes? Oh… ah… Have you played, Nikko?”

“Some time ago, sir.”

“Ah, yes, Excuse me. And do you mind telling me where you played?”

Nicholai pointed out his stone, and Kishikawa-san frowned because the unlikely placement had the taste of a
tenuki.
He marshaled his fragmented attention and examined the board carefully, mentally reviewing the outcome of each placement available to him. When he looked up, Nicholai’s bottle-green eyes were on him, smiling with relish. The game could be played on for several hours, and the outcome would be close. But it was inevitable that Nicholai would win. This was the first time.

The General regarded Nicholai appraisingly for some seconds, then he laughed. “You are a demon, Nicholai.”

“That is true, sir,” Nicholai admitted, enormously pleased with himself. “Your attention was wandering.”

“And you took advantage of that?”

“Of course.”

The General began to collect his stones and return them to the
Gô ke.
“Yes,” he said to himself. “Of course.” Then he laughed again. “What do you say to a cup of tea, Nikko?” Kishikawa-san’s major vice was his habit of drinking strong, bitter tea at all hours of day and night. In the heraldry of their affectionate but reserved relationship, the offer of a cup of tea was the signal for a chat. While the General’s batman prepared the tea, they walked out into the cool night air of the veranda, both wearing
yukatas.

After a silence during which the General’s eye wandered over the city, where the occasional light in the ancient walled town indicated that someone was celebrating, or studying, or dying, or selling herself, he asked Nicholai, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Do you ever think about the war?”

“No, sir. It has nothing to do with me.”

The egoism of youth. The confident egoism of a young man brought up in the knowledge that he was the last and most rarefied of a line of selective breeding that had its sources long before tinkers became Henry Fords, before coinchangers became Rothschilds, before merchants became Medici.

“I am afraid, Nikko, that our little war is going to touch you after all.” And with this entrée, the General told the young man of the orders transferring him to combat, and of his plans to send Nicholai to Japan where he would live in the home of a famous player and teacher of Gô.

“…my oldest and closest friend, Otake-san—whom you know by reputation as Otake of the Seventh
Dan.”

Nicholai did indeed recognize the name. He had read Otake-san’s lucid commentaries on the middle game.

“I have arranged for you to live with Otake-san and his family, among the other disciples of his school. It is a very great honor, Nikko.”

“I realize that, sir. And I am excited about learning from Otake-san. But won’t he scorn wasting his instruction on an amateur?”

The General chuckled. “Scorn is not a style of mind that my old friend would employ. Ah! Our tea is ready.”

The batman had taken away the
Gô ban
of
kaya,
and in its place was a low table set for tea. The General and Nicholai returned to their cushions. After the first cup, the General sat back slightly and spoke in a businesslike tone. “Your mother had very little money as it turns out. Her investments were scattered in small local companies, most of which collapsed upon the eve of our occupation. The men who owned the companies simply returned to Britain with the capital in their pockets. It appears that, for the Westerner, the great moral crisis of war obscures minor ethical considerations. There is this house… and very little more. I have arranged to sell the house for you. The proceeds will go for your maintenance and instruction in Japan.”

“As you think best, sir.”

“Good. Tell me, Nikko. Will you miss Shanghai?”

Nicholai considered for a second. “No.”

“Will you feel lonely in Japan?”

Nicholai considered for a second. “Yes.”

“I shall write to you.”

“Often?”

“No, not often. Once a month. But you must write to me as often as you feel the need to. Perhaps you will be less lonely than you fear. There are other young people studying with Otake-san. And when you have doubts, ideas, questions, you will find Otake-san a valuable person to discuss them with. He will listen with interest, but will not burden you with advice.” The General smiled. “Although I think you may find one of my friend’s habits of speech a little disconcerting at times. He speaks of everything in terms of Gô. All of life, for him, is a simplified paradigm of Gô.”

“He sounds as though I shall like him, sir.”

“I am sure you will. He is a man who has all my respect. He possesses a quality of… how to express it?… of
shibumi.”

“Shibumi,
sir?” Nicholai knew the word, but only as it applied to gardens or architecture, where it connoted an understated beauty. “How are you using the term, sir?”

“Oh, vaguely. And incorrectly, I suspect. A blundering attempt to describe an ineffable quality. As you know,
shibumi
has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real.
Shibumi
is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of
shibumi
takes the form of
sabi,
it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where
shibumi
emerges as
wabi,
it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming. And in the personality of a man, it is… how does one say it? Authority without domination? Something like that.”

Nicholai’s imagination was galvanized by the concept of
shibumi.
No other ideal had ever touched him so. “How does one achieve this
shibumi,
sir?”