by Don Winslow
Also by Don Winslow
A Cool Breeze on the Underground
The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror
Way Down on the High Lonely
A Long Walk up the Water Slide
While Drowning in the Desert
Isle of Joy
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
California Fire and Life
Looking for a Hero
The Power of the Dog
The Winter of Frankie Machine
The Dawn Patrol
The Gentlemen’s Hour
Savages
Also by Trevanian
The Eiger Sanction
The Loo Sanction
The Main
Shibumi
The Summer of Katya
Incident at Twenty-Mile
Hot Night in the City
The Crazyladies of Pearl Street
1339 or So: Being an Apology for a Pedlar (Writing as Nicolas Seare)
Rude Tales and Glorious (Writing as Nicolas Seare)
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA
Copyright © 2011 Don Winslow and The Trevanian Beneficiaries
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2011 by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, and simultaneously in the United States of America by Grand Central Publishing, a division of the Hachette Book Group, New York. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks.
www.randomhouse.ca
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Winslow, Don, 1953—
Satori / Don Winslow.
A novel based on Trevanian’s Shibumi.
eISBN: 978-0-307-39873-4
I. Trevanian. Shibumi II. Title.
PS3573.I555S28 2010 813′.54 C2010-904204-2
v3.1
To Richard Pine
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One: TOKYO, OCTOBER 1951
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part Two: BEIJING, JANUARY 1952
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Part Three: WULIANG MOUNTAINS, YUNNAN PROVINCE, CHINA
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153
Chapter 154
Chapter 155
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159
Chapter 160
Chapter 161
Chapter 162
Chapter 163
Chapter 164
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Part One
TOKYO, OCTOBER 1951
1
NICHOLAI HEL WATCHED the maple leaf drop from the branch, flutter in the slight breeze, then fall gently to the ground.
It was beautiful.
Savoring the first glimpse of nature that he’d had after three years of solitary confinement in an American prison cell, he breathed in the crisp autumn air, let it fill his lungs, and held it for a few moments before he exhaled.
Haverford mistook it for a sigh.
“Glad to be out?” the agent asked.
Nicholai didn’t respond. The American
was as nothing to him, a mere merchant like the rest of his compatriots, peddling espionage instead of automobiles, shaving cream, or Coca-Cola. Nicholai had no intention of engaging in meaningless conversation, never mind allowing this functionary access to his personal thoughts.
Of course he was glad to be out, he thought as he looked back at the bleak gray walls of Sugamo Prison, but why did Westerners feel a need to voice the obvious, or attempt to give expression to the ineffable? It was the nature of a maple leaf to drop in the autumn. I killed General Kishikawa, as close to a father as I ever had, because it was my filial nature — and duty — to do so. The Americans imprisoned me for it because they could do nothing else, given their nature.
And now they offer me my “freedom” because they need me.
Nicholai resumed his walk along the pebbled path flanked by the maple trees. A bit surprised that he felt a twinge of anxiety at being outside the closed, small space of his cell, he fought off the wave of dizziness brought on by the open sky. This world was large and empty; he had no one left in it except himself. His own adequate company for three years, he was reentering a world that he no longer knew at the age of twenty-six.
Haverford had anticipated this, having consulted a psychologist on the issues that face prisoners going back into society. The classic Freudian, replete with the stereotypical Viennese accent, had advised Haverford that “the subject” would have become used to the limitations of his confinement and feel overwhelmed at first by the sheer space suddenly confronting him in the outside world. It would be prudent, the doctor warned, to transfer the man to a small, windowless room with voluntary access to a yard or garden so that he could gradually acclimate himself. Open spaces, or a crowded city with its bustling population and incessant noise, would be likely to upset the subject.
So Haverford had arranged for a small room in a quiet safe house in the Tokyo suburbs. But from what he could learn from what there was to be learned of Nicholai Hel, he couldn’t imagine the man being easily overwhelmed or upset. Hel displayed preternatural self-possession, a calm that was almost condescending, confidence that often crossed the line into arrogance. On the surface, Hel appeared to be a perfect blend of his aristocratic Russian mother and his samurai surrogate father, the war criminal Kishikawa, whom he had saved from the shame of a hangman’s noose with a single finger-thrust to the trachea.
Despite his blond hair and vibrant green eyes, Haverford thought, Hel is more Asian than Western. He even walks like an Asian — his arms crossed behind his back so as to take up as little space as possible and not cause inconvenience to anyone coming from the other direction, his tall, thin frame slightly stooped in modesty. European in appearance, Haverford decided, Asian in substance. Well, it made sense — he was raised by his émigré mother in Shanghai, and then mentored by Kishikawa when the Japs took the city. After the mother died, Kishikawa moved the boy to Japan to live with and study under a master of the impossibly complicated and nuanced board game Go, a sort of Jap chess, albeit a hundredfold more difficult.
Hel became a master in his own right.
So is it any wonder that Hel thinks like an Asian?
Nicholai sensed the man’s thoughts on him. The Americans are incredibly transparent, their thoughts as obvious as stones at the bottom of a clear, still pool. He didn’t care what Haverford thought of him — one doesn’t solicit the opinions of a grocery clerk — but it did annoy him. Shifting his attention to the sun on his face, he felt it warm his skin.
“What would you like?” Haverford asked.
“In the sense of what?”
Haverford chuckled. Most men emerging from long confinement wanted three things—a drink, a meal, and a woman, not necessarily in that order. But he was not going to indulge Hel’s arrogance, so he answered, in Japanese, “In the sense of what would you like?”
Mildly impressed that Haverford spoke Japanese, and interested that he refused to surrender such a small stone on the board, Nicholai responded, “I don’t suppose that you could organize an acceptable cup of tea.”
“In fact,” Haverford said, “I’ve arranged a modest cha-kai. I hope you find it acceptable.”
A formal tea ceremony, Nicholai thought.
How interesting.
A car waited at the end of the walk. Haverford opened the back door and ushered Nicholai in.
2
THE CHA-KAI WAS not only acceptable, it was sublime.
Nicholai savored each sip of the cha-noyu as he sat cross-legged on the tatami floor next to the lacquered table. The tea was transcendent, as was the geisha who knelt nearby, discreetly just out of hearing range of the sparse conversation.
To Nicholai’s shock, the functionary Haverford knew his way around the tea ceremony and served with impeccable courtesy, his ritual flawless. Upon arrival at the teahouse, Haverford had apologized that there were, by necessity, no other guests, then led Nicholai into the machiai, the waiting room, where he introduced Nicholai to an exquisitely lovely geisha.
“This is Kamiko-san,” Haverford said. “She will serve as my hanto today.”
Kamiko bowed and handed Nicholai a kimono to put on, then offered him sayu, a cup of the same hot water that would be used to brew the tea. Nicholai took a sip, then, as Haverford excused himself to go prepare the tea, Kamiko took Nicholai outside to the roji, the “dew ground,” a small garden that held only arrangements of rocks but no flowers. They sat on the stone bench and, without conversation, enjoyed the tranquility.
A few minutes later Haverford, now kimono-clad, walked to a stone basin and ceremonially washed his mouth and hands in the fresh water, then stepped through the middle gate into the roji, where he formally welcomed Nicholai with a bow. In turn, Nicholai purified himself at the tsukubai.