Linnear 01 - The Ninja (22 page)

They turned off to the right, heading down a shallow incline towards a small lake. The sound of children’s voices drifted up to them through the foliage.

‘But with this new policy,’ the Colonel continued, ‘this Westernization, if you will, came, quite naturally, the eroding of the samurai’s great power. After all, they had always been Japan’s most stalwart traditionalists. Now they were branded reactionaries, for they vigorously opposed all that the Meiji Restoration sought to create. I know that you are well aware that since 1582, when Toyotomi Hideoshi became shogun, only samurai were allowed to wear two swords - the katana was the samurai’s province alone. Now this was all changed. The Military Conscription Act forbade the wearing of the katana and, by creating a national army composed of ‘commoners’, effectively did away with the class barrier that had exalted the samurai since its inception in A.D. 792.’

For a time they strolled by the side of the lake, its pure chill blue contrasting with the pink-white of the blossoms. Toy sailboats drifted across the water, their white sails billowing, their tiny captains running gleefully at the verge of the land to keep up with their progress.

‘However, the samurai were not so easily beaten,’ the Colonel said. The miniature sails, moving so steadfastly over the water, recalled to him perfect prints out of Japan’s internecine past. ‘A great majority of them fought back directly and, when they were defeated, they formed societies. The main one was called the Genyosha - the Dark Ocean Society - but there were others such as the Kokuryukai - the Black Dragon

Society. These societies, which are quite active today, are reactionary organizations that believe strongly in imperialism and a manifest destiny for Japan upon the Asian shore.

‘Now the Genyosha was born in Fukuoka and is based there still. But since that part of Kyushu is this country’s closest approach to the continent, it’s not very surprising that the Genyosha should be most virulent there.’

Nicholas thought of the Mongol invasions, of the violently nationalistic feelings that must have been nurtured there by such precipitous incursions. And this led him back to thoughts of Satsugai.

They found a bench beside the water, sat down. On the far side of the lake a child held a bunch of colourful balloons and, farther away, over the massive treetops, he could see plastered against the sky the quivering fragile presence of a box kite; it was painted in the image of a fire-breathing dragon.

‘Having failed in their bid to overthrow the Meiji regime overtly, the members of the Genyosha next set about subverting the Restoration covertly, from within. They were clever men. They knew that the Meiji oligarchy, which propounded industrialization, would need economic expansion in order to fuel this. To them, this must involve the exploitation and eventual subjugation of China.

‘Working within the prescribed political framework of the new Japanese society, the men of the Genyosha sought to make allies in the highest levels of government. They made their intensive target the members of the General Staff, where a reactionary philosophy was the norm rather than the exception.

‘They were aided in this by the upcoming general election of 1882. The Genyosha made deals with the incumbents. In return for their seeing that these politicians were returned to office, the society was assured that this regime would follow a vigorously imperialistic foreign policy. Accordingly, the Genyosha hired toughs, importing them into each district of the country. Beatings were not uncommon. It was an election of fear.’

Two American Army officers passed by with their families in tow; they wore their uniforms like a badge of honour, treading the ground like the conquering heroes they were. Perhaps they saw where they were, what went on around them, but surely they understood none of it.

‘With the implementation of this policy and the success of Japanese expansion into Manchuria and Shanghai came the vested interests of the Japanese businessman abroad. A growing economy was now crucial to Japan and its rate of growth was prodigious. Out of this cauldron rose the four enormous industrial combines comprising the zaibatsu.’

‘Then Kansatsu was right when he said that economics must take as much responsibility as militarism for Japan’s road to the war,’ Nicholas observed thoughtfully.

The Colonel nodded. ‘In many ways, Japan was a primitive nation by world standards; the Tokugawas had seen to that. But, on the other hand, they understood perhaps better than any others the purity of their country. But I’m very much afraid it’s one of the things that MacArthur missed. Oh, he knew enough about the culture to leave the Emperor just where he had always been despite the hue and cry that he be tried and executed as a war criminal. You see, quite apart from the fact that, from the first, the Emperor had done all in his power to aid the Americans after the war, MacArthur was well aware that any attempt to dethrone him would throw Japan into utter chaos; it was a tradition that even the mighty shoguns dared not tamper with.

‘Yet also from the first the Americans propounded the myth that the ‘guiding force behind the Japanese war effort came entirely from the military.’ He licked at his sticky fingers, took out his pipe. ‘Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was the members of the zaibatsu who backed the country into a corner from which war became the only viable economic alternative.’

‘But what about the Japanese people as a whole?’ Nicholas asked. ‘Surely they did not want war.’

The Colonel placed his pipe, unlit, between his teeth. He looked up, watching the gentle bobbing of the laden boughs in the wind. ‘Unfortunately there is a long history here of the people being led. It comes from being so long in a feudal society, of giving blind obedience to the Emperor, the shogun, the daimyo. It’s inbred.’ He sat upright, half facing his son on the bench, one hand holding the bowl of his pipe. ‘It’s not surprising, then, to learn that there was little concerted antiwar sentiment just before the war. In fact, the Social Democrat Party, who had been openly antimilitaristic in their stand when Japan invaded Manchuria, lost much of their constituency in the 1932 general election. It was the tiny but ineradicable Communist Party that became the lone Japanese voice raised against imperialism during that time. It was little more than a reed in a hurricane; the zaibatsu and the Genyosha had efficiently manipulated key individuals in both the government and the media; war became inevitable.’

They both looked up at the sound of running feet. To their left a pair of uniformed policemen rushed down stone steps three at a time, their arms spread wide on either side for balance. People looked up. There was a harsh cry. Children turned; the toy sailboats rocked unattended and unwatched. Several of the American officers hesitated for an instant before taking off after the police. Nicholas and the Colonel stood up and began to drift with the crowd around the left side of the lake.

There was a tour of intervening cherry trees and the foliage was so lush that they could not make out what was happening behind it.

A crowd had formed by the time they arrived, having cut through the grass so as to bypass the crowded steps. Taking Nicholas by the arm, the Colonel shouldered his way through the throng. Already, at the edges, there was some pushing and shoving. The scuffling was brief, however, as more of the metropolitan police arrived on the scene.

The front line of people parted and they saw an expanse of grass like a glade in a forest. There were cherry blossoms scattered upon the grass as if in a hero’s welcome home. Nicholas caught a glimpse of a patterned kimono. At first it appeared grey but then, as he was shoved forward by the thrust of the uneasy crowd, he saw that it was composed of thin waved lines of black and white which, at a distance, blended together. It was trimmed in white.

As more policemen pushed themselves through the onlookers, those already in the glade shifted position. As they did so,

Nicholas saw a man kneeling on the grass. His forehead touched the ground littered with blossoms. His right arm was close to his body, the hand invisible within the kimono’s folds across his belly. In front of him was a small lacquered rosewood and brass box and a long white strip of silk, partly in shadow.

Behind him, the Colonel gripped Nicholas’s shoulders as he said, ‘That’s Hanshichiro’ He was referring to the great Japanese poet.

Nicholas squirmed to get a better look. He now saw the kneeling man’s face between the forest of shifting legs. His hair was iron-grey, his face wide and flat, the features thick. Lines pulled down the corners of his mouth. His eyes were closed. Then Nicholas saw that the silk strip before him was not shadowed but stained. Being porous, it let all the blood through so that it seeped into the earth at Hanshichiro’s feet.

‘Seppuka,’ the Colonel said, ‘is how it ends for the honourable.’

Nicholas was still thinking of how incredibly ordered it was. He was used to stories of the war; there, death was messy. But here, how serene, how precise, how much like the tide of time it was, while all around its calmness stirred the agitated waters.

‘Are you all right, Nicholas?’ The Colonel put his hand lightly on his shoulders, looked down at him concernedly.

Nicholas nodded. ‘I think so.’ He looked up. ‘Yes. I guess I am. I feel - a little strange, as if there’s been too much to take in suddenly. I - Why did he do it in the park? He wanted everyone to sec.’

‘To see and take note,’ the Colonel said. They had quit the lake, climbing into the heights of the park where the trees blotted out even the surrounding paths. Above, Nicholas could still see the wavering dragon, spitting his fire into the air, as if in defiance of the currents that blew him hither and thither.

‘He was a bitter man, firmly embedded in the past. He could never reconcile himself to Japan’s new path.’ A dark blue baby carriage filled with pink twins and pushed by a matronly Japanese woman went past them. Hanshichiro was a brilliant artist, obsessed. A man of great honour. This was his way of protesting against Japan’s march towards the future, a future which, he felt, would ultimately destroy it.’ A young American sailor and his Japanese girl friend approached them from the heights, laughing and clutching each other’s hands. The sailor put his arm around the girl, gave her a kiss on the cheek. She giggled and turned her head away. Her hair tossed in the wind, rippling like the dragon’s body if he were but articulated.

‘There are many others like Hanshichiro,’ Nicholas said. ‘Wasn’t Satsugai born in Fukuoka?’

The Colonel looked reflectively at his son. He stopped and dug in his jacket pocket. He withdrew his tobacco pouch, went about filling his pipe, his thumb tamping at the bowl.

Nicholas, watching the dragon float high above him, over the treetops, said, ‘I’ve read the Constitution, Father. I know that you had a hand in it. It’s not Japanese but it’s very democratic. Much more so than the policies of the government today. Politically, Japan’s gone far to the right, the zaibatsu were never dismantled. Most of the pre-war personnel is intact. I don’t understand that.”

The Colonel drew out a gunmetal-grey Ronson lighter and, turning his back to the wind, thumbed the long flame to life. He sucked three or four times, deeply, almost with a sigh of contentment, before he flipped the top of the lighter closed- ‘I want to know how you feel before I answer that. Do you care that Hanshichiro is dead? Or that you’ve seen a man take his own life?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’ Nicholas put his hand along the black iron railing bordering the path, feeling the cool metal against his skin. ‘I don’t know whether it has taken effect yet. It’s like a movie, not real life. I didn’t know him or his work. I guess I’m sad but I don’t know why. He did what he wanted to do.’

The Colonel drew on his pipe, thinking of what his son had just said. What had he expected? Tears? Hysterics? He dreaded returning home and having to tell Cheong. She loved the old man’s poetry. It was terribly unfair for him to think Hanshichiro’s death could touch Nicholas in the same deep way it did him. Their experiences were not the same and neither were the generations; anyway, Nicholas did not yet possess the sense of history that the Colonel and Cheong did.

And, of course, he had quite a different perspective on it. For a moment he thought of Satsugai. There wasn’t much Nicholas missed. He would have to watch that from now on.

‘Although the American party line was to make the military totally culpable for the war,’ the Colonel said, ‘it’s only fair to say that there was a purge of the zaibatsu directly after the war. However, there was so much burning of original documents and deliberate falsification of others that a great many upper-echelon executives slipped through. Others, of course, did not and were tried and convicted of war crimes.’ They began to walk towards the eastern gate beyond which their car was parked.

‘Now the Americans came in here with the best of intentions.” The Colonel drew on his pipe, exhaled the blue smoke. ‘I remember the day we finished drafting the new Constitution and dropped it on the Premier and the Foreign Minister like another A-bomb. They were flabbergasted. It wasn’t a Japanese Constitution; its spirit was totally Western, that’s certainly true. But it was MacArthur’s firm intention to keep the country weaned from its feudal past, which he saw as highly dangerous. Its essence was that all power should be stripped from the Emperor and given into the hands of the Japanese people while maintaining him as the symbol of state.’

‘Then what happened?’ Nicholas asked.

‘In 1947, Washington, through MacArthur, did a complete about-face. Rights were withdrawn, certain war-crime convictions were overturned and the leaders of the zaibatsu were restored to their pre-war eminence.”

‘It all sounds so contradictory.’

‘Only if you look at it from a purely Japanese point of view,’ the Colonel said. ‘You see, America is deathly afraid of global communism; the Americans will go to any lengths to prevent its spread. Just look at how they’ve aided Franco in Spain and Chiang Kai-shek out here. Fascism, the Americans feel, is their best weapon against communism.’