Inside, the smooth grass of the Center Court had been covered with the sumo ring: a two-foot high, eighteen-foot square of hard-packed clay coated with a thin layer of sand. Embedded in the surface was a circle of straw rope that delineated the ring, which was fifteen feet in diameter. The ring was sheltered by a vaulted wooden roof similar to those of Shinto shrines. Supporting the roof were four colored poles symbolizing the cardinal directions and the seasons of the year: green to the east for spring, red to the south for summer, white to the west for autumn, and black to the north for winter. Apart from the ring and roof, it was like a sports stadium anywhere. In addition to the flags of the United States and Japan, the stadium was decorated with banners representing the sponsors of the Black Ships Festival: Suntory, All Nippon Airways, Honda, and Tanaka’s Yoshino Electronics, whose logo was a branch of cherry blossoms. Television equipment was set up everywhere. Fuji Television would be beaming the match back to Japan.
Charlotte noticed many familiar faces in the front rows, among them those of Tanaka and his young assistant, Hayashi, who had called Okichi-mago “foreigner’s Okichi.” Like Shawn, Tanaka and Hayashi were still in the dark about Okichi-mago’s suicide. If the eyes Hayashi had been making at Okichi-mago at the geisha party were any measure of his feeling for her, he would be just as shocked at the news of her death as his rival. Brightening up the front row next to them were Fujiko, Sumire, and Keiko. Unlike Okichi-mago, who had been staying at Shimoda, the other geisha were being put up at Edgecliff, courtesy of Tanaka. At Lani’s urging, Spalding had notified them that morning that Okichi-mago wouldn’t be attending the match. He had used the jet-lag excuse. Otherwise they would have wondered about her absence. He would tell them about her death after the match. If they knew she was dead, they couldn’t have helped giving it away to Shawn, with predictable consequences for his performance. Fortunately, none of the those who were staying at Edgecliff had been up early enough to witness the drama that was being played out beneath their windows: the police had come and gone long before seven, eager to have Okichi-mago’s body out of the way before the morning joggers, dog-walkers, and sightseers appeared on the scene.
As a television camera panned the audience, Hayashi decorously held aloft a small handmade sign printed with Japanese characters.
The Japanese audiences were a lot more subdued in the way that they displayed their enthusiasms than their American counterparts, Charlotte thought. “What does Hayashi’s sign say?” she asked.
“‘Stop Akanohana,’” Spalding replied.
“I guess he doesn’t want Shawn to win,” she said drily.
“No,” said Spalding. “Each of the sumo wrestlers has a corporate sponsor. Tanaka’s corporation, Yoshino, is the sponsor of Shawn’s rival, Takafuji. But it goes beyond simple corporate loyalties.”
“The old xenophobia bit?”
“Carried to its most hysterical extreme. Shawn wasn’t liked before on account of being a foreigner, but now that he’s on the verge of attaining yokozuna status, the traditionalists are going berserk. Last week, one of the newspaper columnists speculated about strategies that might be used to prevent him from winning: deliberately inflicting a practice injury, lacing his food with sugar so that he’ll develop diabetes, and so on.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yes. But some of these fans are beyond reason. One newspaper proposed calling off all sumo tournaments if Akanohana should become a yokozuna. To the Japanese, sumo is a reflection of their traditions, a vestige of a more chivalrous past. For a foreigner to have penetrated that world is almost unthinkable. It would be like the Japanese buying the Dallas Cowboys.”
“Or Rockefeller Center,” said Charlotte.
“Good point. I guess the Japanese aren’t the only xenophobes around. But they’re going to have to get used to the idea if they’re truly interested in seeing sumo become an international sport.”
“Connie was saying that they’ve made it difficult for Shawn all along.”
“Very difficult,” said Spalding. “The committees that determine the match-ups have always pitted him against the toughest opponents. I have to give him a lot of credit for sticking it out.”
“I would think his perseverance would have earned him their respect.”
“It has, among some. He has a big following among the young Japanese, and of course among fans from other countries, who are becoming more numerous. But some of the traditionalists hate to see a foreigner playing their game, and playing it better than they do. I sometimes think they’d like him better if he was the ugly American they expect him to be.”
“They feel as if Shawn’s showing them up?”
“Exactly. Especially when so many of the young Japanese wrestlers can’t tolerate sumo’s rigorous discipline. Like Takafuji, for instance. He has a reputation as a hothead. Once, he roughed up one of his attendants, and another time he kicked a member of his fan club. To the Japanese, such behavior is as unacceptable as stepping on a tatami mat with your shoes on.”
Charlotte smiled at the reference to Dede’s spike heels.
“To a lot of sumo fans, he embodies everything that’s wrong with the modern generation, sumo wrestler or no.”
“No respect for his elders, no respect for tradition, no self-discipline.”
Spalding nodded.
The complaint was the same the world around.
The sumo match opened with a series of brief speeches by various officials: a representative of the Japan Sumo Association, the mayor of Newport, the governor of Rhode Island. After the speeches, Lani took the microphone and gave a brief explanation of the history and rules of sumo, a recap of what he had said at the reception. The match itself began with drumming: a ring attendant pounded on a drum suspended from a pole carried by two other ring attendants. After the drumming came the ring-entering ceremony. The procession was led by the referee, who was dressed in a traditional kimono and a pointed black court hat which was tied under his chin. After the referee came the rikishi from the east (the rikishi were divided into east and west sides). After filing into the stadium, they circled the ring in a counterclockwise direction. From the moment they entered the stadium, Charlotte could see the appeal of sumo. Despite everything she had been told, in some compartment of her mind she still linked sumo with the professional wrestling on Saturday afternoon television. But professional wrestling bore as much resemblance to sumo wrestling as an advertising jingle did to a Gregorian chant. Like the referee, the rikishi were colorfully dressed, each wearing a sumptuous embroidered silk apron. Spalding explained that the aprons, which cost thousands of dollars, were donated by the sponsors. As Lani announced their names, each rikishi mounted the raised ring and then turned outward to face the audience. Explaining that the wrestlers liked to hear their names, Lani urged the crowd to cheer for their favorites. “The more noise you make, the more they like it,” he said.
The rikishi entered the ring in order of rank, the last to enter being Takafuji, the highest-ranked sumo on the east side. He was wearing an apron embroidered with a cherry branch, the emblem of Yoshino Electronics. As Takafuji entered the ring, Hayashi cheered loudly for his favorite. As sumo physiques went, Takafuji’s was middling: he wasn’t a butterball, but neither was he as lean as some. But he was ugly and meanlooking, with black eyebrows that formed a straight line across his forehead, a narrow, thin-lipped mouth, and slitlike eyes.
“Central casting’s idea of the Japanese villain,” said Charlotte.
“He is a mean-looking bastard, isn’t he?” said Spalding. “He’s said to have the most menacing stare in sumo. He’s also considered one of the best showmen, of the bad-guy variety. Easy to hate, and fun to watch. The fans love him. His nickname is The Warthog.”
“An apt description,” said Charlotte.
Once all the rikishi had mounted the ring and shown themselves to the fans, they turned inward to perform the opening ritual, which included clapping their hands to summon the attention of the spir
its, and raising their arms to show that they had no concealed weapons. After the rikishi from the east had departed, the ceremony was repeated for the rikishi from the west. Reflecting his rank at the top of his division, Akanohana was the last to enter. He wore a stunning light blue apron embroidered in gold with a magnificent cloud design and the logo of the American airline that was his sponsor. He stood out from the other wrestlers not only because of his Western features, but also because of the hair on his chest: the Japanese wrestlers were hairless. His physique was also quite muscular by comparison with many of the other wrestlers, who tended toward pendulous breasts and pudgy upper arms. As he mounted the ring, the crowd roared. He appeared to be especially popular with the Japanese-Americans, who probably saw a reflection of themselves in him: a hybrid of two cultures. As he turned outward to face the audience, Charlotte caught a glimpse of Marianne’s expression out of the corner of her eye: her nose was pointing, her nostrils quivering: she had that bird dog look again.
After the rikishi from the west had departed, the elaborate ring-entering ceremony for the yokozuna began. In addition to the chief referee, he had two other attendants, a herald and a sword-bearer. The thick white ceremonial rope belt that was the symbol of the yokozuna’s rank was wrapped around his waist and tied in an elaborate knot at his back. From it hung white paper strips cut in a zigzag pattern that represented symbolic offerings to the gods. Like the rikishi before him, the yokozuna performed the ritual of clapping and raising his arms, as well as foot-stomping, signifying the stomping of evil into the ground. After the yokozuna’s ring-entering ceremony, there was a brief exhibition of sumo holds and training exercises by the young apprentices who served as attendants to the wrestlers in the higher ranks. Then the first bout began.
Mounting the ring, the kimono-clad announcer slowly unfolded a white fan. Facing east and west in turn, he extended his fan and called out the names of the rikishi from each side. As the opponents ascended into the ring, Lani filled the audience in on their backgrounds. The rikishi on the east stood six foot two and weighed four hundred and fifty-five pounds. To Charlotte, he looked like a gigantic popover on stumps. He was known for his prodigious appetite, said Lani, who proceeded to describe his dinner-table record: six dozen bowls of noodles, thirty-six box lunches, and twenty-five bottles of beer. By contrast, the rikishi on the west was a pipsqueak, standing only five feet eleven and weighing just over two hundred and fifty pounds.
Marianne leaned across Charlotte to speak to Spalding. “Spalding, this seems so unfair. Isn’t the big guy going to squash the little guy? After all, he’s the size of four people!”
Spalding smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “Wait and see,” he said. “The little guy usually has a few tricks up his sleeve.”
Marianne looked skeptical.
“That’s the appeal of sumo,” Spalding explained to them. “Unlike Western wrestling, there aren’t any weight classes. It’s strictly man-to-man combat. Who wins depends more on factors like skill, guts, balance, intellect, and concentration than it does on size or brute force.”
No longer wearing their aprons, the rikishi were clad only in a silk loincloth called a mawashi. As they warmed up, their names were called again, this time by the referee. Then they went to opposite corners of the ring and rinsed their mouths out with a dipper of water.
“Power water,” said Spalding, explaining the mouth-rinsing ritual. “The idea is to enter the ring in as clean and pure a state as possible. You’ll also see them wipe the sweat off their bodies just before the match begins.”
After the mouth-rinsing, each contestant picked up a handful of salt and threw it into the ring, another act of ritual purification. Then they squatted facing one another at the center of the ring, and proceeded to fix one another with a piercing stare.
Charlotte thought of her Siamese cats, who often stared at one another like this before a fight. The one who looked away first always lost.
“Is this a psychological duel?” asked Marianne.
“Exactly,” said Spalding. “The pre-bout staring contest often decides the bout. To stare your opponent straight in the eye demands a lot of concentration. If you’re physically or psychologically off balance, your opponent is going to find out about it.”
Lester leaned over to interject a comment: “Marianne is very talented at this, aren’t you, honey? She knows just where a man’s weaknesses lie.”
Marianne gave him a dirty look. They were obviously still feuding over the night before, which had ended in a nasty quarrel. If Marianne had looked Lester in the eye, she would have seen a very red one; he was very hung over.
After the rikishi had repeated the squatting, standing, staring, salt-throwing ritual a few times, the referee signaled that their time was up and the wrestlers squatted for the last time. In her position at ringside, Charlotte was only a few feet from the action. Less than ten feet from her nose was the enormous, cellulite-pocked rear end of the gigantic popover. Then the bout began. As the crowd roared, the rikishi circled one another for a few seconds, and then charged like rutting hippos on the African veldt. Before Charlotte could figure out what had happened, the behemoth was on his back.
The referee pointed his fan to the little guy and announced his name. The bout had taken less than ten seconds.
“How did he do that?” asked a bewildered Marianne, as the gigantic popover bowed curtly to his opponent and then waddled out of the ring, his enormous back coated with the sand of defeat.
“The little guy used a technique called uwate-nage, or outside arm throw, to throw the bigger guy,” Spalding explained. “As you watch some more, you’ll begin to get a feel for it.”
For the next hour, Charlotte watched in fascination. As Spalding had predicted, she began to develop a familiarity with the basic techniques, which included shoving your opponent out of the ring, lifting him up and carrying him out, and slapping him out: a peculiar technique in which one man slaps the other toward the edge of the ring, and then pushes him out. In addition, there were a variety of grappling techniques aimed at dumping the man within the ring. As the match wore on, the giants also took on their own individual identities. Charlotte became particularly fond of the aging yokozuna, Kotoyama, who, reconciled to losing most of his bouts, seemed to be wrestling just for the hell of it. Unlike some of the other stone-faced giants, he even seemed to have a sense of humor. Maybe it was just one old warhorse identifying with another.
But the real star of the show was Akanohana.
Charlotte was mesmerized as she watched him defeat one opponent after another, his intelligence radiating from every movement. Unlike the other sumos, who tended to favor a single technique, Akanohana varied his according to the strengths or weaknesses of his opponent. In one bout, he patiently wore his opponent down, gradually penetrating his defenses; in the next, he deftly grounded his opponent with an elegantly executed arm throw; in still another, he struck with the flashing impact of a lightning bolt. He was cunning, skillful, and cool. It was no surprise that his nickname was The Fox. Coached by Spalding, Charlotte found herself cheering him on with the phrase, Ganbare! the rough translation of which was “Go for it.” Spalding cheered right along with her, and Charlotte was pleased to see him abandon his customary reserve. Even Lester cheered, temporarily forgetting Marianne’s romantic interest in Shawn. After four winning bouts, Akanohana predictably emerged as the winner, and Lani announced a break before the playoff with Takafuji.
As the audience resumed their seats for the playoff a few minutes later, the atmosphere in the stadium was electric. Once again, the announcer mounted the ring and called out the names of the contestants. Then they mounted the ring: Takafuji all strut and swagger, and Akanohana all cool and concentration. He reminded Charlotte of Line Crawford in a cinematic shoot-out on Main Street. Lani announced their statistics: The Warthog, Takafuji, was five feet eleven and three hundred and eighteen pounds; The Fox, Akanohana, was six foot one and two hundred seventy-five pounds. As sumo wrestle
rs went, they were pretty evenly matched. Lani went on to talk about the colors of their mawashi: as a purist, Akanohana wore a black loincloth in keeping with official rules that mawashi be black or a dark color like purple or navy blue, but Takafuji’s loincloth was a blinding chartreuse. Since the introduction of color television, many rikishi had chosen to ignore the unenforced rule on mawashi color, Lani explained.
“In my book, the chartreuse mawashi alone is reason enough not to like the guy,” Spalding whispered in her ear.
After mounting the ring, the rikishi performed the opening ritual, clapping their hands and raising their arms. Then they went to the center of the ring and stomped evil into the ground. Next came the salt-tossing ritual: drinking their power water, wiping their mouths with a special paper towel, throwing the salt into the ring, and finally taking up their positions at the center of the ring, crouching like coiled springs. By now, the noise of the audience was a roar, and Hayashi’s placard was bouncing up and down. They repeated the salt-tossing ritual several times: Takafuji glaring and stomping; Akanohana behaving with supreme disdain and Zen-like single-mindedness, as if his opponent were too insignificant even for his contempt. After some more posturing, the timekeeper signaled that the time was up, and a ring attendant handed the wrestlers towels to wipe off their sweat. Once they had braced for the opening charge, the referee raised his war fan from a horizontal to a vertical position, and the two rikishi came together with a bone-shattering thud. According to Spalding, the opening charge was the moment of truth. If the bout hadn’t already been decided in the stare-off, it would be when the two rikishi came together. The key to victory was a strong belt grip.
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