The Samurai Strategy

by Thomas Hoover

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In the aftermath of that evening down in Ise, Tam was convinced of onlyone fact. Nobody was giving her the straight story. Not Noda, not Mori,not Ken. And when she tried to talk supercomputers with MITI officialsat the Kyoto conference.

  she again sensed she was hearing a runaround. Suddenly all she couldget was Japan's public face, that version of reality Japaneseexecutives 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 whywas he going along with Dai Nippon if he was as apprehensive as heseemed? Ken, she concluded, knew a lot more about Matsuo Noda than hewas saying.

  So instead of giving them all an answer outright, she decided to spenda few days analyzing what she'd managed to piece together so far. AsNoda had couched his proposition, it was simple: he was offering her achance to do more than merely write prescriptions for America'seconomic recovery. She would guide it.

  One thing, Matsuo Noda was no proponent of half measures. The way helaid out his scenario, it was visionary . . . no, revolutionary. Afterthinking over his proposal for a week, she still wasn't sure whether hewas brilliant or a megalomaniac. Dai Nippon's program could conceivablychange the course of world history, and the prospect of being at thehelm of its juggernaut was seductive. All the same, what if Ken's hintswere 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'sKyoto offices getting acquainted with Noda's operation--the computers,fiber-optic links, analysts. Very impressive. Although Dai Nippon wastechnically only a shell corporation, all Matsuo Noda had to do waspick up a phone to have at his disposal the expertise of any one of ahundred Japanese corporate brain trusts. Half of Japan's new high-techmovers, it seemed, owed him some kind of "obligation." Given that, andall the money, he could well be unstoppable.

  Also, the austerity of Dai Nippon's offices reminded her once againthat none of Japan's new power was accidental. The discipline of thesamurai. It was almost as though this country had been in training forcenturies, toughening itself through self-denial and work-as-duty to beready for an all-out economic blitz. Now, finally, Japan had an edge onthe entire world. More technology and more money.

  Was Noda about to just give away that edge? The implausibility made hercertain something was missing.

  Late that Friday, the conference over, she and Ken packed their bagsand checked out of the International. But after they'd shoved their waythrough the usual pandemonium in the lobby and hailed a cab, he gavethe driver the name of a place on Shinmonzen Street, the antiquedistrict. Not the train station. When she tried to correct him, hewaved his hand and said he'd arranged for a surprise.

  "Tam, the International always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It hasnothing to do with Japan. It could be anywhere, just like some Hiltonnext to a freeway." He smiled and lightly patted her hand. "Let's notgo back to Tokyo just yet. Please. This weekend let's stay at a placewhere 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 youthink?" He laughed self-consciously. "That's a contradiction about meyou'll someday have to get used to. I like a high-tech office, but whenI'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 ofKyoto. A place time forgot."

  This is going to be quite a trick, she told herself. Very little wasleft from years past. Maybe the city hadn't been bombed out during thewar, but the blitz of urban renewal was rapidly accomplishing much thesame result. Through the light of dusk, construction cranes loomedabove the few remaining thatched roofs of neighborhoods about to beoverwhelmed by steel, glass, cinderblock.

  Kenji Asano, it turned out, deplored this immensely. As they rodealong, he pointed out the latest construction sites with the sorrow ofa 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 Peacecigarette, nonfilter. "Someday I think we may have to ask ourselves ifthis modern world we've created for ourselves was actually worth thetoll it's taken on our sensibilities."

  Eventually their taxi pulled into a narrow side street, edging past afew women carrying small bundles of groceries bound in scarves, theneasing to a stop before the ramshackle bamboo gates of a place thatseemed abandoned to foliage and vines.

  The driver helped carry their bags in through the gates and up therocky, hedge-lined pathway leading to a wooden veranda. Ahead was athatch-roofed, weathered house shrouded by towering elms. As theyapproached, an elderly woman in a dark kimono emerged from the recessesof the interior. She sang out a welcome, bowed deeply, and produced twopairs of leather slippers with an air of ritual solemnity. They wereexpected.

  Off went the street shoes, on went the slippers as they melted into aworld that would have been perfectly natural four centuries ago. Whenthey passed the "lobby"--off to the side, _tatami_-floored, with a fewancient screens scattered about--Tam noticed that there appeared to beno "desk." But there was also no "check in"; the proprietress clearlyknew the honorable Asano-san. She also must have known he was withMITI, since her honorifics soared into the upper reaches of politenessas 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 ontoanother veranda, this one circling a central garden and pond, the placeappeared to be totally empty. The woodland vista in the center hintedof infinity, with stone paths and a wide pool dotted with shapelyrocks. Although there were a dozen or so closed doors along the woodenplatform, the inn seemed to be there solely for them. In the cool duskclumps of willows across the pond masked the view of the other side,furthering the illusion that they had the place all to themselves. Itcouldn't be true, though, since chambermaids in kimono darted here andthere balancing lacquered dinner trays.

  When they reached the end of the veranda, their hostess paused before aset of _shoji _screens, knelt, and pushed aside the rice-paper coveredframes 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 aweathered vase holding three spare blossoms. Their room had no keys, noclocks, no television. It was a cocoon for the spirit, a place oftextured 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, outof 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. AfterwardI 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 littlewood-lined room where their steaming bath awaited. The floor was redtile, the walls scented Chinese black pine, the massive tub cedar withrivulets 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 shedid the same for him, watching half mesmerized as the soapy bubblesflowed off his shoulders, broad and strong. Almost like an athlete's.Finally they climbed in, and amidst the cloud of vapor her lastremaining tensions melted away.

  "You know, I think of you every time I come to Kyoto, wanting t
o lureyou back." He reached for the brush and began to gently massage herneck. "I honestly never dreamed Matsuo Noda would come along and try tohire you." He paused. "I wish I could help you make your decision. Butthe 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 eitherof 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 MatsuoNoda."

  "Just don't ever underestimate him. He's not like anyone you've everknown 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 hernow. 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, theyclimbed out, toweled each other off, slipped back into their yukatasonce again, and glided back to the room. She noticed that an interiorscreen had been pushed aside, opening onto another _tatami_ room wherea thin futon mattress had already been unrolled and prepared with whitesheets and a thick brocade coverlet. Hot tea waited on their littlelacquer table, but their bags had disappeared. She checked behind apair of sliding doors and saw that all her things had been neatlyshelved by some invisible caretaker. Even the clothes she'd beenwearing were already hung in the closet.

  "Now for my surprise." He was slipping on a black silk kimono. "Theyhave 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 thewooden clogs that were waiting. Then they passed through a bamboo gateinto yet another landscape, this one lit by candles set in stonelanterns. 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?" Heindicated a bench just inside the gate under a thatch overhang. "I'llonly need a few minutes to prepare."

  Off he went, clogs clicking along a string of stones nestled in amongthe mossy floor of the garden. He was following the _roji_, the "dewypath" 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 wasmeant to recall a mountain walk. The space was small, with naturaltrees, offering no illusion of being more than it was. But it was aclassic setting for tea, a kind of deliberate "poverty." While shewatched the flickering stone lanterns and listened to the nightcrickets, the cacophony of Kyoto could have been eons away.

  Finally Ken appeared beside the doorway of the teahouse and signaledher forward. As she moved along the stepping stones, she noticed thatthe pathway had been swept clean of

  falling leaves, after which the gardener had strewn a few back to giveit _wabi_, an unaffected natural look. The art of artlessness, shethought, as she paused at a stone water basin to rinse her mouth fromits bamboo dipper, part of the preparatory ritual.

  The _cha-no-yu _or "tea ceremony," she knew, required almost a lifetimeto master completely. It was a seated ballet of nuance and perfectclarity of motion. One awkward gesture and its carefully orchestratedperfection could be spoiled. She hoped she could remember the ruleswell enough to get it right.

  Ken was already seated across from her, tending a small charcoalbrazier sunk into the _tatami_-matted floor. From its light she couldjust 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 wascaught in an unearthly silence, the only sound the sonorous boiling ofthe kettle.

  Ken was profoundly transformed, almost like another being. Warm andattentive only minutes before, now he was part of a different world,solemn and remote. The black silk of his kimono seemed to enforce theseriousness in his dark eyes.

  She watched as he ritually wiped a thin, delicately curved bamboo scoopwith a folded cloth, first touching the handle, then the uptilted end,after which he balanced it atop the lacquer tea caddy. Next he liftedthe tea bowl, an earth-tone glaze that shifted from mauve to brown ashe rotated it in his hand and wiped the rim. Finally he swabbed thebottom and positioned the bowl on the _tatami_ in front of him. Now theutensils had been formally cleansed. He was ready. From the tea caddyhe spooned a mound of jade-green powdered tea and tapped it into thebowl. Then another, this last with a carefully prescribed twist of thescoop.

  Next he extracted a dipperful of boiling water from the iron kettle andmeasured a portion into the bowl, lifted the bamboo whisk sittinginverted beside the bowl, and commenced a vigorous blending. The teaimmediately began to resemble a pale green lather. Still no words, nosound 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 whatthis was all about: how flawlessly could you perform what seemed themost simple, humble act. And he was good. Whereas the mastery in hishands revealed itself by the control with which he whipped the tea, therest of his body remained taut as a spring. Total discipline. Each tinymotion was distilled to its crystalline essence.

  At last, when the green froth was ready, he gave the whisk a finalhalf-turn, then set it aside. Next he lifted the bowl, rotated it inhis 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. Kenhad 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 distancetoward her. Then she scooted backward on the tatami and again moved thebowl closer. Was she doing it right? The flicker in Ken's eyes saidyes.

  Finally, with a bow of acknowledgment, she raised the bowl in bothhands 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 greentea was harsh and bitter, just as she remembered from times past. Evenfor a Japanese it was difficult to feign appreciation of the muskybeverage produced in the _cha-no-yu_.

  She recalled what was next. With deliberate dignity she extracted asmall napkin from the _obi _of her loose _yukata_, wiped the rim of thebowl, and placed it carefully onto the _tatami_ in front of her. Themotion 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 exquisitebonds two people can share. At that moment she felt--was itimagination?--like an ancient Fujiwara, celebrating some age-oldtradition. . . .

  The ceremony was over now. She bowed again, then lifted the bowl toadmire 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." Hesmiled. "I had it brought down to Kyoto especially for tonight. Foryou."

  "I'm honored." She was.

  After she had admired the rest of the utensils--the remaining formalityof _cha-no-yu_--they both relaxed, their minds purged, their spiritsattuned. 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. Thejoy of it all. Who could have known?" He leaned back and reached for aflask of plum wine. Formal
ities were definitely over. "As someone oncewrote, 'Love. Its roots are deep. Its source unknowable.'" He waspouring 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 alwayscelebrated emotion over logic." He smiled. "Which one said, 'Love isthe 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'tShakespeare 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 laughedwith delight. "You know, in Heian times, eight hundred years ago herein Kyoto, I'd be expected to make a linked verse about the night now."He looked out the doorway, then back. "How about . . .