Enzan: The Far Mountain (15 page)

And my hands came up around the soles of my feet and I got up.

I sagged onto the bed and cut the tape off my ankles, then worked carefully to do it on my wrists—no sense slicing a tendon or cutting an artery when I was so close. My arms came free and I took a deep breath. I felt dizzy and sweat was cold on my forehead. My eyes stung. Part of me just wanted to lie down and moan.

Get up
.

The real question now was what I was going to do next. Escape would be nice—he who fights and runs away and all that—but that wasn’t why I had come here. I sometimes wonder whether there was only one quality Yamashita had seen in me all those years ago, and that was a simple, dogged stubbornness. He’s done a great deal for me, but above all he’s compressed and polished this one aspect of my personality to a hard, gemlike luster.

So there was no question of running away. I needed to get Chie Miyazaki out of the building with me. And that was going to take some doing. A number of bad schemes occurred to me. I could knot the sheets into a rope, tie it to the bed, and hang it out an open window. I would hide in a closet until my captors discovered my apparent means of escape, wait until they ran out to look for me, then slip out and find Chie. Alternately, I could brace myself up against the walls in the narrow entranceway to the bedroom and shimmy up above the doorjamb, where I could pounce on whoever entered the room. But I had left my ninja climbing claws at home.

Even with the concussion, I knew each idea to be bad.
A youth wasted watching B movies, Burke.

New strategy. I took a deep breath and moved to the door, making as little noise as possible. I paused, alert to any whisper of external noise that might suggest a guard was waiting just outside the door. Nothing. I eased the door open and slipped out onto the dark landing. It was slow going and perhaps “slipped” is a bit too fluid a description for the way I was moving, but every second I was in motion made me feel a little more like myself—functioning, integrated. In control.

The second floor stretched across the back half of the chalet and opened, loftlike, onto the living room below. I crouched and moved on all fours, toward the loft railing, and peered down. There were a few table lamps spilling circles of warm light on the floor and the fire occasionally snapped and flickered into the general gloom caused by the snowstorm. I could hear the murmur of voices and got close enough to see three of Lim’s companions on a big L-shaped couch, sitting forward, arms resting on their knees with their shoulders hunched. They didn’t look happy. Chie Miyazaki sat curled up in a broad armchair, fully dressed and silent. I inched a little closer to get a better view. They seemed tense, people anxious for news but worried what it was going to be.

Finally we all heard the sound of Lim’s car returning. The motor revved as he gunned the vehicle up the slight incline of the snow-covered drive. Gravel crunched against rubber. The sliding door to the house opened and I ducked down.

A quick exchange of questions, and a glance up my way. Smug assurances from his pals. Lim turned to Chie.

“We’ve got to go,” he told her.

“Where?” She was wearing a dark ski jacket and burrowed herself deeper into it.

Lim shook his head impatiently. He moved toward her. “C’mon. Get up. We’ve got to leave.”

“What about him?” she jerked her chin in my direction.

“Don’t worry about him.”

Chie got up, agitated. “Don’t worry? He knows where I am.” Lim didn’t respond. She took a step toward him and grabbed his arm. “Lim. My grandfather sent him …” I could hear the tension vibrating in her voice.

Lim nodded and turned to the other three. A string of instructions in Korean. The men stood up slowly, nodding and blinking.

Lim turned back to Chie. “OK, we’re out of here.”

She crossed her arms. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” Lim told her. “Get in the car.”

“Nothing?” Her voice rose an octave. “What are we going to do about him?” Her arm swept out and pointed toward the loft.

By this time the other three men were standing, rocking uneasily. Maybe they were uncertain about what they had been told to do. Or reluctant.

“They’re going to take him to the quarry,” Lim said. “They’ll drop him off and leave him there.” I remembered the map of Mattson’s Peak that I had picked up earlier in the day—the remote northern edge was bound by an abandoned quarry. The trails there were marked in red with big caution signs warning against the crumbling cliffs and sheer drops.

“It’s not going to change anything,” she protested. “He’ll just come at us again.”

“He’s not going to come at us again,” Lim said, trying to soothe her.

Something in his expression made her do a double take. “What … Lim, what do you mean?” I could see the awareness slide over her face. She was finally getting it. They weren’t going to drop me off at the quarry except in the broadest sense. What they were really planning was to drop me off the quarry cliff itself. Nice. City slicker gets lost in snow, tumbles to his doom. The fall probably wouldn’t be a clean one and might explain the extensive bruising they’d find at the postmortem.

Lim grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t push it, Chie. You don’t need to know.”

“Let go of me!” She pulled free, backing away. Lim came after her and she resisted, but it didn’t seem to me that she was putting up more than a token fight. I thought back to the roshi’s description of people like her: they were victims and were in some ways probably resigned to the futility of resistance. Lim gave a meaningful nod to his men and trundled her out the door.

The three men glanced at each other and slowly started to head for the stairs. One of them took out a pistol and took the lead. I backed away from the railing and pushed myself to my feet. Swayed a little.
Get it together, Burke
. I scanned the space for anything that might be a better weapon than the knife, but it was dark and difficult to see. And I didn’t have time.

Yamashita trains us hard in the use of weapons, but at the more advanced levels he also works to make us see the violent potential in everything. He has expounded on the lethal uses of a rolled-up magazine, of ballpoint pens. Pillows and panty hose. It sounds creepy, but we prefer to think about it as a type of enhanced awareness, an openness to the world as it is in all its complexity. Sarah Klein said she wanted to look at the world differently. She didn’t deny the reality of what I saw; she just preferred not to focus on it. Maybe it was one of the reasons she left. How can two people live in the same place and see two different worlds?

I didn’t have much to work with on that landing in terms of weapons. And I had no time. I was left with the basics: the contrast between the lighted room below and the dark landing; the mindset of a group of men expecting to find me trussed up and helpless in a bedroom; the geography of a stairwell. Gravity. It was enough.

Climbing stairs requires a certain subliminal focus. You’re moving forward and moving upward, but you have to be careful about leaning forward slightly to avoid tumbling backward. You’re shifting balance between each leg. Forward. Up. Side to side. We do it automatically, but nobody is at his best climbing stairs.

The guy with the gun was in the lead, of course. He wasn’t expecting me, so there was a split-second pause when I swung in front of him at the head of the stairs—the startle response. The two men behind him were still moving closer, so now they were jammed a little tighter together in the stairwell. I slammed at the forearm of the first guy’s gun hand, driving down like a hammer, a cleaver, an ax, going for the ulnar nerve and giving it all the savage force I could muster. I rammed my right hand into his throat. It brought his head up, disturbing the neat coordination of stair climbing, bringing his center of balance a little higher. I shoved him up and back, and he gurgled and fell backward, taking his pals with him.

I picked up the gun from where he had dropped it and stumped down the stairs as rapidly as I could. They were trying to untangle themselves at the bottom, a little confused, but they were recovering fairly quickly. The first guy was concentrating on trying to breathe, but the other two were shooting quick glances at each other, planning their next move.

I pulled the receiver back on the automatic pistol and pointed it at them. “Please,” I croaked. “Give me an excuse.” They slumped slightly in defeat and held their hands up.

I backed them up against the wall. One had a big hooded parka and I made him take it off. Then I had them get their choking friend upright. When I told them to drop their pants and face the wall, they seemed momentarily puzzled and alarmed. Let them worry. My thought process was simple: I wasn’t operating on all cylinders and I wanted an edge. It’s hard to move quickly with your pants down around your ankles. You either pause to yank them up or have to shuffle around like you’re on a chain gang. Either way, it would give me a second or two. I backed away from them and shrugged into the parka. It was the most dangerous moment of the whole thing. Gun transfer to left hand, right arm in, gun transfer back. Shrugging the coat up while keeping them covered. One of them was craning his head to see me. “Don’t turn around,” I said. The rasp in my voice gave a little more menace to my delivery. “If any one of you comes after me, I’m coming back and I’ll shoot you all. Clear?” The head jerked back to face the wall. I could see all of their backs hunch with tension. They were probably all expecting me to shoot them anyway. At that moment, the pain of their beating still throbbing, it was an option that would have worked for me.

Outside, the snow was blinding. I got my hood up and made my way down the broad steps at the front of the chalet. Lim’s car was idling in the driveway with the second car parked in a spot closer to the building. I shuffled through the snowdrift and opened the back door of the second car like I was getting it ready to dump a body into it.

Then I waded ahead to the driver’s side where Lim sat. In the half-light and swirling snow I was an indistinct figure in bulky winter clothes, hood up against the weather. I tapped on the window and motioned for him to lower it.

It whirred down. I drove my right hand in and the muzzle of the pistol slammed into his temple. A shocking violation of handgun safety, since the impact might have made it go off. But it didn’t, and I got the door open and dragged Lim out onto the snow. He moaned faintly. I wanted to hit him again—
just to make sure
, I told myself. But it was a lie. He was, after all, the man who was going to have someone throw me off a cliff. To be honest, I just wanted to hit him.

But by that time I was pretty much out of gas. It took most of my remaining energy to drop into the driver’s seat of Lim’s car and drive off into the storm.

Chapter 15

Mori’s Journal

Over the next few days, you chaperoned Chika-hime while I did all I could to learn a little more about Miyazaki.

The monks were only too eager to talk. They had heard of the way Miyazaki treated the abbot and seethed with resentment. Their love for that old man overwhelmed their usual reserve.

“He abuses the servants,” one confided.

“This was a bad marriage,” another said. “I hear the princess weeping at night.”

“Truly an evil man,” commented another, sweeping a flagstone path and keeping his eyes down and his voice low. “The world would be a better place without him.” He saw my shocked expression and grinned sheepishly. “Ah, Mori-san, we all struggle to follow the eightfold path. And compassion is so important, yes?” He shrugged and started sweeping again. “But I am merely a monk and not a Buddha.” A hard swipe of the broom sent dirt flying. “And he is still a devil.”

Takano reached out as well, making phone calls, surprising old contacts around Tokyo who knew something of the Miyazaki family. The conversations that took place were cautious ones. The Miyazaki family was on the rise, growing wealthier and more politically connected by the year. The marriage to the princess had been merely the latest move in a carefully orchestrated process of rehabilitation that had been in operation for almost twenty years. But despite the caution and the elliptical responses, Takano was able to flesh out a picture of the young man who had come to a distant temple to challenge his best students.

Miyazaki’s family had clung ferociously to the practice of the martial arts, even during the postwar ban on their practice. The war years had shown the world the worst aspects of our martial culture. There was no denying it. Some martial arts sensei had been enthusiastic supporters of the imperial ambitions that brought calamity to our nation, and as a result, MacArthur had banned training in the old arts, seeing them as vehicles for fostering the rabid nationalism, the cruelty and aggression, that marked the 1930s and forties. You and I know, Rinsuke, the warrior’s arts can be things of fierce beauty. But if they are treasures, they are treasures passed on by people, and so can be warped and bent to bad purposes.

I do not know whether the Miyazaki family really understood the bugei in this way. Certainly from looking at their son, I doubt it. But they were shrewd enough to sense the prohibition on the old ways would pass. And they also knew something of the hold these arts have on our nation. So they clung to them, supporting the old masters through the lean postwar years with stipends, much as the old daimyo, the feudal lords, had done centuries ago. And when the ban was lifted in 1948, the Miyazaki made sure their largesse was remembered and their fidelity to the spirit of Japan was made known.

The young Miyazaki was raised in this tradition. Like many of us, he was exposed to the arts as a schoolboy. But his family insisted he immerse himself in training in the dojo as much as they demanded he excel in school. They were shaping an heir who would build a record of achievement not only in the best schools of the new Japan, but also on the hardwood floors of dojo, where tribute was paid to the old ways.

He focused on kendo, the way of the sword. We were all familiar with the art; many of us had trained extensively in it prior to arriving at Takano’s door. Although a modern fighting form, it has a certain elegance and rigor that suggests a connection to the old schools of fighting. The technique has been adapted to a competitive environment that is almost sport-like, but even so, its inspiration in the way of the samurai makes kendo one of the modern martial arts forms people respect. Miyazaki grew to be quite skilled in the art and ultimately served as the captain of his university team. He achieved some distinction in prefectural competition, but never advanced in grade beyond the level of fourth dan.

The sensei that Takano spoke with did not say why such a gifted player was never promoted. But their silences and inflections, the stray hint here and there, told Takano all he needed to know. At the higher levels of rank in kendo, technical competence alone is not enough for advancement. Issues of character, of spirit, come into play. And there, Miyazaki had been found wanting.

He had cut his teeth early on in training with old-time instructors who still followed the practices of prewar kendo. Even today kendo is an aggressive, austere art, but the old-school players were noted for their no-holds-barred approach. It was called gekken, severe sword, and its ruthless savagery fit Miyazaki’s personality perfectly. He was able to rein himself in when required, but his practice never lost a certain savage quality. He was a particularly brutal team captain at university, and there were rumors that he was personally responsible for crippling more than one novice in hazing rituals.

After college, although concentrating on the family business and political interests, he still trained. But he drifted from one dojo to the next, sometimes of his own volition, at other times because he was banned from further play at a specific location. He sought out the schools with the toughest reputation, always looking to prove himself and to wipe away the shame of his lack of promotion.

It was why he had come to see Takano. If he had heard the same stories we had heard about the old man, ones that told of his mastery, his rock-hard fidelity to tradition, and his brutal insistence on perfection, it was no wonder Miyazaki was drawn to the small dojo tucked away in a small temple far to the north of Tokyo. Miyazaki must have thought Takano was a kindred spirit. For his part, the old man saw Miyazaki as an answer to a prayer. Takano may have had distant dreams of the way in which an association with the Miyazaki family would advance his fortunes. It was rare that he acted without more than one motive. For the most part, however, I think Takano saw Miyazaki’s visit as a way to humiliate one of his most troublesome students.

Takano had tried to break you, Rinsuke, but he could not. It rankled. We all knew this. Why did he hate you so much? After all these years, I am still unsure. He was a master of his art and had not been bested by anyone for decades. Perhaps he expected such dominance to be his in all things. You accepted him as teacher, but never acquiesced in the submission he really craved. You never became a disciple. He wanted you to be his man, not your own, and you could never bring yourself to give in.

You were always hardheaded, Rinsuke. I say that with admiration, even now, even knowing what it cost you.

And then again, as I look back all those years, I wonder whether Takano was really afraid of you. I wonder whether he saw the potential in you to exceed his own skill and could not bear the thought of the student eclipsing the sensei.

The motives for what he did were never fully revealed—Takano would not have been a master if he were that easily read. But his plan was clear.

He had in Miyazaki a savage fighter itching to prove himself. Takano had sensed your attraction to the princess and arranged for the two of you to be constantly together. Your focus would be on the woman. Miyazaki’s would be on the fight. Takano would use the visitor from Tokyo to teach you a lesson, to humiliate you in front of your peers. That you were perhaps not fully healed from the beating he had given you made your defeat almost certain. And, the old man planned that I would watch the match between you and Miyazaki, and in the process I would learn enough to defeat him in the inevitable rematch to salvage the honor of the dojo. With Yamashita broken and Miyazaki humbled, Takano would, in one stroke, rid himself of a hated student and ensure the reputation of his training hall.

With the passing of time, it all seems so petty. I hated Takano for it for years, but now my anger has faded. Is it wisdom or simple weariness that comes with age? Even now I am unsure. You and I have trained all these years to develop a type of focus, to acquire an ability to see things as they really are. The old masters talked about “Enzan no metsuke,” the ability to gaze at things and see the big picture, as if looking at a far mountain. They cautioned us to be aware of, but never distracted by, the obvious. To see through petty distractions and the illusion that is life. But how often have we been deluded? We hoped for clarity always, but for me, I remember as many foggy days in my life as bright ones.

I was a dutiful student, and for that I am ashamed. Despite my insight into the real motivation behind Takano’s plan, I could not disobey him. Even for a friend like you, Rinsuke. I rationalized my actions, and even now, as I finish this last message to you, I half believe it. My life’s path had been set. I would serve. I always would serve, no matter what it cost me. You know of the life I led after leaving Takano, of my service to the Imperial House. You know what I say about my choices is true. Yet I imagine you reading these words and smiling ruefully. If I were sitting there before you, there would be only silence. But your face would slowly form a look that cut through all my rationalizations. Thinking about it, I hang my head in shame. You know me; the odd combination inside me of ambition, practicality, and pride. What could I do? If I refused Takano, he would deny me my certificate of mastery and all the training would have been for nothing. If I refused, another one of us would have volunteered for the match. And if you were doomed to be defeated by Miyazaki, I believed I was the only one who stood a chance of beating him.

So I trained. I burned, stoked with shame and anger and resignation. But I prepared for the match.

The day before it was to take place, the old man ordered me to go get you. The Miyazaki had taken residence at a local ryokan, an old-style inn that perched along the rugged seacoast. It was their last stop on the scenic tour of the province. Although they had left their retinue of servants behind, Takano had insisted you accompany them as a “sign of respect.” In actuality, the old devil was simply playing with you. And now he had decided to bring you back, supposedly because you would need to prepare for the demonstration the next day. In reality, it was one more move to throw you off balance.

He could have telephoned and ordered you back; instead he sent me, on foot. The rural road that led to the sea took the long way around. There was a shorter trail up through the woods and across the rugged hills that lay between the monastery and the coast. This was the route I was ordered to take. It was eight grueling miles of rock and mud, gnarled roots, and the damp, silent presence of ancient trees. In the years since, I have wondered why he went to such elaborate lengths for this errand. The old man never did anything without some ulterior motive. In the end, I think it was because he could. He could order me up the slope and across country to do his simple bidding. He would watch me disappear into the rocky woods and his wide mouth would spread wider into a grim, contented smile. He was the master and I was the servant. It was something I believe he never tired of experiencing. But there was more: I would appear to order you back, and there was the possibility that perhaps you would resent the messenger as well as the message. As I stumbled down one slope and up another, I could imagine his satisfaction at that.

Early spring is a changeable thing on the northern coast. The thin sunlight that had hinted at warmer things to come appeared briefly, and then vanished. It was overcast and damp, and as I climbed higher into the hills the temperature dropped. On the ridgebacks, the wind was stronger, and I could feel the iron touch of a sea that had yet to shrug off winter.

The snow began so gradually, the flakes were so tiny, that it snuck up on me. I was trudging along, head down, carefully making my way across the slick, dark earth, the twisted roots and rocks. Occasionally I would glance up, and the light seemed dimmer, the air less clear. But I was in a hurry. It was only when the snow began to cling to the ground that I really noticed it. I crested the last ridge and gazed out onto the wide expanse of ocean that heaved behind a curtain of snow that blew in from the continent and loomed across the gloomy sea.

By the time I reached the inn, I was soaked with sweat, my face and hands burning from the cold. I stood on the wide porch while the innkeeper brought you out. You took the summons from Takano calmly enough; maybe you were expecting it.

“He wants me back,” you said. “Right now?”

“Right now,” I said, nodding.

“It would have been too easy to send a car, neh?” There was nothing to say to such a comment. I slumped down, enjoying the sensation of being at rest, even for a short time, and waited.

“We’re taking the trail back?” Again, I said nothing. Just nodded in weary resignation. You snorted, asked the innkeeper to fetch me some tea, and disappeared inside. I could hear you explaining your departure. A man’s noncommittal response, a woman’s objection. Then you were back, lacing on your boots and shrugging into a coat.

“Let’s go,” you said. And we headed off.

The snow was falling heavily by then and it made the switchback trail up the hill treacherous. We paused halfway up. You turned to look down on the inn. It was a sign, I thought, of where your emotions lay. You gazed out onto the shallow bay, a fishing trawler, rocking at anchor in the choppy water. You squinted, as if the action could help you pierce the thickening snow.

“What kind of fisherman is out in this weather?”

“A foolish one,” I answered. “Much like anybody who’s hiking out in this …”

You didn’t smile at my joke, but kept looking out into the bay. You pointed. “They’ve put a boat off …”

I was tired and wanted to get back to the task at hand, to hurry up across this ridgeline in the hopes it would shield us from the worst of the storm. But the tone of your voice made me look. Like you, I squinted. I watched the small motor launch make its way toward the shoreline near the inn. The wind blew a momentary hole in the veil of snow and I felt a sudden spasm of alarm. The boat held five or so men and they appeared to be carrying weapons.

You had launched yourself down the slope before I had fully grasped the implication of what I was seeing. No words were necessary between us. We were both certain.