by John Shirley
“Oh.”
“Let me give you a ride. My electric vehicle is outside.”
“That would be nice. I live several kilometers away from—”
“I know where you live, of course.”
“Fine, then.”
Hari ran up. “Aunt Melissa! Did you see?! I don’t know what happened! I just felt, I don’t know, I just hit it!”
“That was wonderful.” She smiled at him. Killer Kudzu was looking up, very interested in the stadium support structure.
The stable in which Man-Mountain Gentian trained was being entertained that night. That meant that the wrestlers would have to do all the entertaining.
Even at the top of his sport, Man-Mountain had never gotten used to the fans. Their kingly prizes, their raucous behavior at matches, their donations of gifts, clothing, vehicles, and in some cases houses and land to their favorite wrestlers. It was all appalling.
It was a carryover from traditional sumo, he knew. But zen-sumo had become a worldwide, not just a national sport. Many saved for years to come to Japan to watch the January or May tournaments. People here in Japan sometimes sacrificed at home to be able to contribute toward a new kesho-mawashi apron for a wrestler entering the ring. Money, in this business, flowed like water, appearing in small envelopes in the mail, in the locker room, after feasts such as the one tonight.
Once a month, Man-Mountain Gentian gathered them all up and took them to his accountant, who had instructions to give it all, above a certain princely level, away to charity. Other wrestlers had more, or less, or none of the same arrangements. The tax men never seemed surprised by whatever amount wrestlers reported.
He entered the club. Things were already rocking. One of the hostesses took his shoes and coat. She had to put the overcoat over her shoulders to carry it into the cloakroom.
The party was a haze of blue smoke, dishes, bottles, businessmen, wrestlers, and funny paper hats. Waitresses came in and out with more food. Three musicians played unheard on a raised dais at one side of the room. Someone was telling a snappy story. The room exploded with laughter.
“Ah!” said someone. “Yokozuna Gentian has arrived.”
Man-Mountain bowed deeply. They made two or three places for him at the low table. He saw that several of the host-party were Americans. Probably one or more were from the CIA.
They and the Russians were still trying to perfect zen-sumo as an assassination weapon. They offered active and retired sumotori large amounts of money in an effort to get them to develop their powers in some nominally destructive form. So far, no one he knew of had. There were rumors about the Brazilians, however.
He could see it now, a future with premiers, millionaires, presidents, and paranoids in all walks of life wearing wire-mesh clothing and checking their Eveready batteries before going out each morning.
He had been approached twice, by each side. He was sometimes followed. They all were. People in governments simply did not understand.
He began to talk, while saki flowed, with Cast Iron Pekowski. Pekowski, now 12-2 for the tournament, had graciously lost his match with Typhoon Takanaka. (There was an old saying: In a tournament, no one who won more than nine matches ever beat an opponent who has lost seven. Which had been the case with Takanaka. Eight was the number of wins needed to retain current ranking.)
“I could feel him going,” said Pekowski in Polish. “I think we should talk to him about the May tournament.”
“Have you mentioned this to his stablemaster?”
“I thought of doing so after the tournament. I was hoping you could come with me to see him.”
“I’ll be just another retired sekitori by then.”
“Takanaka respects you above all the others. Besides, your dampatsu-shiki ceremony won’t be for another two weeks. You’ll still have your hair. And while we’re at it, I still wish you would change your mind.”
“Perhaps I could be Takanaka’s dew-sweeper, if he decides.”
“Good! You’ll come with me then, Friday morning?”
“Yes.”
The hosts were very much drunker than the wrestlers. Nayakano the stablemaster was feeling no pain but still remained upright. Mounds of food were being consumed. A businessman tried to grab-ass a waitress. This was going to become every bit as nasty as all such parties.
“A song! A song!” yelled the head of the fan club, a businessman in his sixties. “Who will favor us with a song?”
Man-Mountain Gentian got to his feet, went over to the musicians. He talked with the samisen player. Then he stood facing his drunk, attentive audience.
How many of these parties had he been to in his career? Two, three hundred? Always the same, drunkenness, discord, braggadocio on the part of the host-clubs. Some fans really loved the sport, some lived vicariously through it. He would not miss the parties. But as the player began the tune he realized this might be the last party he would have to face.
He began to sing:
I met my lover by still Lake Biwa
just before Taira war banners flew . . .
And so on through all six verses, in a clear pure voice belonging to a man half his size.
They stood and applauded him, some of the wrestlers in the stable looking away, as only they, not even the stablemaster, knew of his retirement plans and what this party probably meant.
He went to the stablemaster, who took him to the club host, made apologies concerning the tournament and a slight cold, shook hands, bowed and went out into the lobby, where the hostess valiantly brought him his shoes and overcoat. He wanted to help her, but she reshouldered the coat grimly and brought it to him. He handed her a tip and signed the autograph she asked for.
It had begun to snow outside. The neon made the sky a swirling multicolored smudge. Man-Mountain Gentian walked through the quickly-emptying streets. Even the ever-present taxis scurried from the snow like roaches from a light. His home was only two kilometers away. He liked the stillness of the falling snow, the quietness of the city in times such as this.
“Shelter for a stormy night?” asked a ragged old man on a corner. Man-Mountain Gentian stopped.
“Change for shelter for an old man?” asked the beggar again, looking very far up at Gentian’s face.
Man-Mountain Gentian reached in his pocket, took out three or four small ornate paper envelopes which had been thrust on him as he left the club.
The old man took them, opened one. Then another and another.
“There must be more than eight hundred thousand yen here . . . ” he said, very quietly and very slowly.
“I suggest the Imperial or the Hilton,” said Man-Mountain Gentian. Then the wrestler turned and walked away.
The old man laughed, then straightened himself with dignity, stepped to the curb and imperiously summoned an approaching pedicab.
Melissa was not home.
He turned on the entry light as he took off his shoes. He passed through the spartanly furnished low living room, turned off the light at the other switch.
He went to the bathroom, put depilatory gel on his face, wiped it off. He went to the kitchen, pick up half a ham and ate it, washing it down with three liters of milk. He returned to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, went to the bedroom, unrolled his futon and placed his cinderblock at the head of it.
He punched on the hidden tape deck and an old recording of Kimio Eto playing “Rukodan” on the koto quietly filled the house.
The only decoration in the sleeping room was Shuncho’s print, “The Strongest and the Most Fair,” showing a theater-district beauty and a sumotori three times her size, hanging on the far wall.
He turned off the light. Instantly the silhouettes of falling snowflakes showed through the paper walls of the house, cast by the strong streetlight outside. He watched the snowflakes fall, listening to the music, and was filled with mono no aware for the transience of beauty in the world.
Man-Mountain Gentian pulled up the puffed cotton covers, put his head on the buildi
ng block and drifted off to sleep.
They had let Hari off at his house. The interior of the runabout was warm. They were drinking coffee in the near-empty parking lot of Tokyo Sonic #113.
“I read somewhere you were an architect,” said Killer Kudzu.
“Barely,” said Melissa.
“Would you like to see Kudzu House?” he asked.
For an architect, it was like being asked to one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vacation homes, or one of the birdlike buildings designed by Eino Saarinen in the later twentieth century. Melissa considered.
“I should call home first,” she said after a moment.
“I think your husband will still be at the Nue Vue Club, whooping it up with the money-men.”
“You’re probably right. I’ll call him later. I’d love to see your house.”
The old man lay dying on his bed.
“I see you finally heard,” he said. His voice was tired.
Man-Mountain Gentian had not seen him in seven years. He had always been old, but he had never looked this old, this weak.
Dr. Wu had been his mentor. He had started him on the path toward zen-sumo (though he did not know it at the time). Dr. Wu had not been one of those cryptic koan-spouting quiet men. He had been boisterous, laughing, playing with his pupils, yelling at them, whatever was needed to get them to see.
There had been the occasional letter from him. Now, for the first time, there was a call in the middle of the night.
“I’m sorry,” said Man-Mountain Gentian. “It’s snowing outside.”
“At your house, too?” asked Dr. Wu.
Wu’s attendant was dressed in Buddhist robes and seemingly paid no attention to either of them.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” asked Man-Mountain Gentian.
“Physically, no. This is nothing a pain shift can help. Emotionally, there is.”
“What?”
“You can win tomorrow, though I won’t be around to share it.”
Man-Mountain Gentian was quiet a moment. “I’m not sure I can promise you that.”
“I didn’t think so. You are forgetting the kitten and the bowl of milk.”
“No. Not at all. I think I’ve finally come up against something new and strong in the world. I will either win or lose. Either way, I will retire.”
“If it did not mean anything to you, you could have lost by now,” said Dr. Wu.
Man-Mountain Gentian was quiet again.
Wu shifted uneasily on his pillows. “Well, there is not much time. Lean close. Listen to what I have to say.
“The novice Itsu went to the Master and asked him: ‘Master, what is the key to all enlightenment?’
“ ‘You must teach yourself never to think of the white horse,’ said the Master.
“Itsu applied himself with all his being. One day while raking gravel he achieved insight.
“ ‘Master! Master!’ yelled Itsu, running to his quarters. ‘Master! I have made myself not think about the white horse!’
“ ‘Quick!’ said the Master. ‘When you were not thinking of the white horse, where was Itsu?’
“The novice could make no answer.
“The Master dealt Itsu a smart blow with his staff.
“At this, Itsu was enlightened.”
Then Dr. Wu let his head back down on his bed.
“Good-bye,” he said.
In his bed in the lamasery in Tibet, Dr. Wu let out a ragged breath and died.
Man-Mountain Gentian, standing on his futon in his bedroom in Tokyo, began to cry.
Kudzu House took up a city block in the middle of Tokyo. The taxes alone must have been enormous.
Through the decreasing snow, Melissa saw the lights. Their beams stabbed up into the night. All she could see from a block away was the tangled kudzu.
Kudzu was a vine, originally transplanted from China, raised in Japan for centuries. Its crushed root was used as a starch base in cooking; its leaves were used for teas and medicines, its fibers to make cloth and paper. What kudzu was most famous for was its ability to grow over and cover anything that didn’t move out of its way.
In the Depression thirties of the last century, it had been planted on road cuts in the southeastern United States to stop erosion. Kudzu had almost stopped progress there. In those ideal conditions it grew runners more than twenty meters long in a single summer, several to a root. Its vines climbed utility poles, hills, trees. It completely covered other vegetation, cutting off its sunlight.
Many places in the American South were covered three kilometers wide to each side of the highways with kudzu vines. The Great Kudzu Forest of central Georgia was a U.S. National Park.
In the bleaker conditions of Japan the weed could be kept under control. Except that this owner didn’t want to. The lights playing into the snowy sky were part of the heating and watering system which kept vines growing year-round. All this Melissa had read before. Seeing it was something again. The entire block was a green tangle of vines and lights.
“Do you ever trim it?” she asked.
“The traffic keeps it back,” said Killer Kudzu, and laughed. “I have gardeners who come in and fight it once a week. They’re losing.”
They went into the green tunnel of a driveway. Melissa saw the edge of the house, cast concrete, as they dropped into the sunken vehicle area.
There were three boats, four road vehicles, a hovercraft, and a small sport flyer parked there. Lights shone up into a dense green roof from which hundreds of vines grew downward toward the light sources.
“We have to move the spotlights every week,” he said.
A butler met them at the door. “Just a tour, Mord,” said Killer Kudzu. “We’ll have drinks in the sitting room in thirty minutes.”
“Very good, sir.”
“This way.”
Melissa went to a railing. The living area was the size of a bowling alley, or the lobby of a terrible old hotel. The balcony on the second level jutted out from the east wall. Killer Kudzu went to a console, punched buttons.
Moe and the Meanies boomed from dozens of speakers.
Killer Kudzu stood snapping his fingers for a moment. “O, send me! Honorable cats!” he said. “That’s from Spike Jones, an irreverent American musician of the last century. He died of cancer,” he added.
Melissa followed him, noticing the things everyone noticed—the Chrome Room, the Supercharger Inhalorium, the archery range (“the object is not to hit the targets,” said Kudzu), the Mosasaur Pool with the fossils embedded in the sides and bottom.
She was more affected by the house and its tawdriness than she thought she would be.
“You’ve done very well for yourself.”
“Some manage it, some give it away, some save it. I spend it.”
They were drinking kudzu tea highballs in the sitting room, which was one of the most comfortable rooms Melissa had ever been in.
“Tasteless, isn’t it?” asked Killer Kudzu.
“Not quite,” said Melissa. “Well worth the trip.”
“You could stay, you know?” said Kudzu.
“I thought I could.” She sighed. “It would only give me one more excuse not to finish the dishes at home.” She gave him a long look. “Besides, it wouldn’t give you an advantage in the match.”
“That never really crossed my mind.”
“I’m quite sure.”
“You are a beautiful woman.”
“You have a nice house.”
“Hmmm. Time to get you home.”
“I’m sure.”
They sat outside her house in the cold. The snow had stopped. Stars peeped through the low scud.
“I’m going to win tomorrow,” said Killer Kudzu.
“You might,” said Melissa.
“It is sometimes possible to do more than win,” he said.
“I’ll tell my husband.”
“My offer is always open,” he said. He reached over and opened her door on the runabout. “Life won’t be t
he same after he’s lost. Or after he retires.”
She climbed out, shaking from more than the cold. He closed the door, whipped the vehicle in a circle and was gone down the crunching street. He blinked his lights once before he drove out of sight.
She found her husband in the kitchen. His eyes were red; he was as pale as she had ever seen him.
“Dr. Wu is dead,” he said, and wrapped his huge arms around her, covering her like an upright sofa.
He began to cry again. She talked to him quietly.
“Come, let’s try to get some sleep,” she said.
“No, I couldn’t rest. I wanted to see you first. I’m going down to the stable.” She helped him dress in his warmest clothing. He kissed her and left, walking the few blocks through the snowy sidewalks to the training building.
The junior wrestlers were awakened at 4:00 a.m. They were to begin the day’s work of sweeping, cleaning, cooking, bathing, feeding, and catering to the senior wrestlers. When they came in they found him, stripped to his mawashi, at the 300-kilo push bag, pushing, pushing, straining, crying all the while, not saying a word. The floor of the arena was torn and grooved. They cleaned up the area for the morning workouts, one following him around with the sand-trowel.
At 7:00 a.m. he slumped exhausted on a bench. Two of the juryo covered him with quilts and set an alarm clock beside him for 1:00 p.m.
“Your opponent was at the ball game last night,” said Nayakano the stablemaster. Man-Mountain Gentian sat in the dressing rooms while the barber combed and greased his elaborate chonmage. “Your wife asked me to give you this.”
It was a note in a plain envelope, addressed in her beautiful calligraphy. He opened and read it. She warned him of what Kudzu said about “more than winning” the night before, and wished him luck.
He turned to the stablemaster.
“Has Killer Kudzu injured any opponent before he became yokozuna last tournament?”
Nayakano’s answer was immediate. “No. That’s unheard of. Let me see that note.” He reached out.
Man-Mountain Gentian put it back in the envelope, tucked it in his mawashi.
“Should I alert the judges?”
“Sorry I mentioned it,” said Man-Mountain Gentian.
“I don’t like this,” said the stablemaster.