Linnear 02 - The Miko (86 page)

Together they strolled down the flagstone path, Justine holding lightly to his left hand.

“How are your fingers today?” she asked.

“Better,” he said. It was what he always told her.

“Has feeling come back yet?”

“They’re better.” His voice was gentle. “Just better.”

Justine looked at him, wondering what it might take now to set his spirit at rest.

They passed a stone basin in the shape of an old coin. It was round, carved on its top with one character at each cardinal direction. Rock. Rain. Fire. Cloud.

Justine wanted to walk over to it and they went off the path. Water filled its square central well, a handmade bamboo ladle resting on the stone.

“I’m thirsty,” she said, and Nicholas took up the ladle. They both drank from it. The water was cold and sweet. For a moment the well was less than full, and as Nicholas bent to return the ladle to its resting place, he saw that there was an ideogram carved into its bottom. Michi. A path; also a journey.

Miraculously, the house and grounds had sustained no major damage in the aftermath of the earthquake. One outer wall at the southerly end of the house had collapsed, and several trees nearby had been split. But that was all.

Still, it was hardly the same. Without Itami and her legion of servants the place seemed deserted indeed. She had died sometime during the day and a half he had been at the hospital. The funeral had taken place two days later, when Nicholas was healed sufficiently to attend. She was buried in a plot quite near Cheong’s and the Colonel’s, as she had wished.

There had been no pain in her dying, the white-haired physician had told Nicholas. He had attended to Itami’s medical needs for more than thirty years. “One moment she was there,” he said. “The next she was gone.” Nicholas was at least grateful for that.

Justine watched him as he wandered the house. Something had come over him the moment he had alit from the car. She had felt it when she had taken his hand, when she had looked at his strong, handsome profile as they had walked the gravel path to the house.

In the small room where only chano-yu had been performed, he sank down onto his knees. He winced a bit as pain flicked through his shoulder. Then, by some process that was totally mysterious to Justine, he flicked it off, and his face cleared.

She knelt at his side, bending her head a bit to see more of the beautiful garden than the half-screen permitted. “Why is it like that?” she said. “There’s so much more to see out there.” But even when he explained it to her, she was not certain that she understood. If it’s there, she thought, why not take advantage of it?

“I’ve met with Nangi several times,” he said, his voice drifting. “He’s anxious that we stay, at least for a time. There’s so much to do.” He turned his head. “Would that be okay with you, a month or six weeks? Tokyo’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, watching him still. There was a wistful look on his face, and a calmness young boys have after a long day’s exertion, when, happily exhausted, they return home to a secure rest.

“Well, really, he’d like us to stay here permanently. I told him that that was out of the question.”

“Why did you do that?”

He looked at her quickly. “Why? It’s not possible. And you wouldn’t like it. You’d miss New York. And your new job.”

“I’d miss you more if we went back to the States and I saw you longing to be here. Besides, I think I could talk Rick into letting me start up a branch office in Tokyo. He’s fascinated by Japanese ad methods.”

“I don’t want to be here,” he said. “Besides, where would we live?”

She smiled at him. “Why not right here?”

“Oh, no,” he said immediately. “There are too many memories here. The past’s all around, hanging in every corner like a spider web.”

“I like it here,” she said, regaining her feet. “I’m sorry that you don’t.”

On the way back, they stopped by the side of the lake. The birds were trilling sweetly, and the air smelled very fresh.

Justine gently stroked the back of his injured hand. “Why won’t you smile, Nick. You’ve been brooding for weeks. It worries me to see you like this.”

Nicholas spread out his hands, palms up. “I look at these, Justine, and wonder what they’re for besides inflicting pain and death.”

She put one of her hands in his. “They’re also gentle hands, Nick. They caress me and I melt inside.”

He shook his head. “That’s not enough. I can’t help thinking what they’ve done. I don’t want to kill.” His voice trembled. “I don’t believe that 1 ever could have.”

“You never sought out death, Nick. You’ve always killed in self-defense.”

“Yet I sought out the training, first bujutsu, then ninjutsu. Why?” His eyes were pleading.

“What answer do you think will satisfy you?” she said softly.

“That’s just it,” he cried in anguish. “I don’t know!”

“I think that’s because there is no answer.”

His head went down and he said in a muffled voice, “Then I have no answer for how I maimed my friend.”

“Oh, Nick,” she said, pressing her lips against his cheek, “Lew doesn’t blame you; why blame yourself?”

“Because without me he’d still have two hands!”

“No, without you he’d be dead. And he’d never have found out who really murdered Angela Didion.” Nicholas had told her as much as he could during their long vigil during Croaker’s operation. “You know how obsessed he was over that.”

With a little cry Nicholas tore himself away from her loving embrace. He went around the car, reached into an open back window, and took the dai-katana up.

He kissed Justine hard on the lips. “I’ll be back in a little while. Wait for me; listen to the birds, watch the sunlight drift through the leaves.”

He went away from her up the small grassy knoll and down toward the lake. The water sparked and danced as ripples creased its surface. Water lapped softly at his feet, running into his socks. It felt good on his feet, and he waded in up to his thighs, unmindful of his clothes.

There was a pain like a stone in his throat. Iss-Hogai had been the Colonel’s gift to him to commemorate his passage from child to man.

But, he thought now, there was another passage he must make that came after that one. He was ready for it now; prepared in every way he could imagine. Yet it would still hurt, he knew. Not as much as his hurt for his friend, but it would be bad enough.

“Thank you, father,” he mouthed as he lofted the dai-katana high over his head in his good hand and threw it with all his strength out into the middle of the lake.

It hit the surface point on, and there was no splash at all. Soundlessly, it disappeared into the depths.

For a long time after that Nicholas stood thigh deep in the cool water, feeling its life-giving lap surrounding his body. He breathed deeply of the air; heard birds calling behind him. He saw a pair of snowy herons lift off from the water’s surface and wheel into the white sky. He watched their flight until they, too, were lost to sight.

He recognized the lightness in his spirit when it came, like a fresh breeze after a humid summer’s day. It had been time to put away the lethal toys that had dominated his life for so long. It was time to get on with living.

He turned at last and waded the short distance to shore. Just beyond the small crest of the knoll, Justine waited for him. His heart expanded at the knowledge.

As he went toward her, he thought that she might be right after all, just as Nangi had been right. Japan was his home. Did he really want to leave it now?

For the first time he could feel the real force of the calmness he experienced in Itami’s chano-yu room. There his spirit was truly at rest. He could imagine tsukimimoon viewingthere; celebrating New Year’s with traditional mochi rice cakes; hanami in April when the cherry blossoms fell rich and radiant, reminders of all that life was: exquisite and fleeting. Sakura were, after all, as mortal as men and women.

In Itami’s househis house, should he wish itthe modern-day Japan had not yet come. The feudal kami still resided there, proud and splendid and eternally victorious. Honor lived there, as well as courage.

Nicholas, taking Justine’s hand in his, thought it would be the perfect spot to teach a new spirit what life was all about.

ERIC VAN LUSTBADER was born, raised and educated in Greenwich Village. He graduated Columbia College in 1968, majoring in Sociology. While there, he founded an independent music production company, a move which led to a fifteen-year involvement in the entertainment industry. That involvement encompassed work in journalism, marketing, seeking out new talent, graphic design, and publicity. He has worked for Cash Box magazine, Elektra Records, CBS Records, Dick James Music, USA, and has written and field-produced a profile on rock star Elton John for NEC-TV’s “Nightly News.”

Since 1979 Mr. Lustbader has devoted his full time to writing. He is the author of three previous internationally best selling novels, The Ninja, Sirens, and Black Heart.

He lives in New York City and Southampton with his wife, freelance editor Victoria Schochet Lustbader.

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