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,