The Fifth Profession (37 page)

Savage studied the crowded sidewalks. Every pedestrian wore Western clothes. A Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant stood next to a sushi bar. Signs written in Japanese ideograms often included the equivalent of their message in the Western alphabet.

Akira gave more instructions to the driver. The taxi rounded a corner, passed several American-style shops and apartment buildings, and stopped before a tall stone wall in the middle of which stood a polished wooden door.

As Akira paid, Savage wondered why Akira had brought them here. He almost reached for the handle on the taxi's door, then remembered the unique device in Japanese taxis and waited for the driver to pull a lever that automatically opened the door for his passengers. Politeness combined with efficiency. Savage had to smile.

His smile slowly faded after he got out with Rachel and Akira. They lifted their travel bags from the taxi's trunk, which had also been opened by remote control, and faced the stone wall.

It was double Savage's height. What
is
this place? he wondered, barely aware that the taxi had driven away. He frowned toward Rachel, who shook her head, equally confused.

Akira stepped toward an intercom mounted to the wall beside the wooden door. He pressed a button. Seconds later, a woman's frail voice said something in Japanese. Akira responded. The woman quickly answered, her tone a complex blend of respect and delight.

Akira turned toward Savage and Rachel. “Good. For a moment, I was afraid that I'd brought you to another false memory.”

“The most special place in the world?”

Akira nodded.

Behind the door, something scraped and clanked. The door swung inward, and Savage was amazed to find himself before an elderly woman wearing sandals and a brilliantly colored kimono, the first traditional costume he'd so far seen in Japan.

The kimono had an intricate flower design. Its material was smooth gleaming silk. Savage heard Rachel exhale in admiration.

The elderly woman's long gray hair was tucked in a burn behind her head, secured by an ornate bamboo comb. She leaned a stout wooden bar against the inside of the wall, pressed her palms together, and bowed to Akira.

He bowed in return, said something that made her smile, and gestured for Savage and Rachel to pass through the door.

With wonder, they entered. As the woman shut the door and placed the wooden bar into metal loops on each side to prevent the door from being opened, Savage was so overwhelmed by what he saw that he stopped and set down his bag.

The view was completely harmonious, every detail arranged so that no one thing drew attention any more than anything else. Only gradually was Savage able to analyze his impressions. He stood on a path of white pebbles. To his right and left, golden sand had been carefully raked so that the prong marks formed curving patterns, enhancing volcanic rocks distributed at pleasing intervals. The rocks were of different sizes and shapes, each with intriguing contours, ridges, and cracks, and they in turn were enhanced by two tastefully positioned cedar shrubs on the right and one on the left. The high wall muffled the noises from the street, enough so that Savage heard water trickling. Dusk cast soothing shadows.

At the end of the path, which curved in imitation of the rake patterns in the sand, Savage saw a single-story house. It was plain, rectangular, made of wood, with a tiled roof that sloped past the house to form an overhang on each side. The rim of the roof curved slightly upward, reminding Savage of the curve in the path and the curve marks in the sand. Each corner of the roof was supported by a post, and these existed in perfect symmetry with the front door between them and a window on each side that was equidistant between each post and the door. Bamboo blinds covered the windows, behind each of which a lamp glowed.

Purity, balance, beauty, order.

“Yes,” Rachel said, then surveyed the looming oppressive concrete buildings on each side and returned her attention toward the garden and the house. “The most special place in the world.”

“I feel like I've stepped through a time warp,” Savage said.

“Or
halfway
through. Part of me's still in the present, but another part is in the …”

“Past,” Akira said, his voice sad. “Out there, the past is the source of our problem. In here, it gives me comfort.”

“But how did … ? Where … ?”

“This house belonged to my father. I once told you, after the war he achieved a modest degree of financial success by converting military planes for civilian use. He used much of his money to purchase this property. That was in nineteen fifty-two when this area was on Tokyo's outskirts. But even then land was expensive, and this was the most he could afford. The street outside wasn't here then, and of course neither were the buildings that hem the property. But he saw the future and longed for the past, for the peace he'd known as a boy on a farm years before the war. So he arranged for this house to be built in the ancient style, and after its completion he shielded it with these walls, and each evening after work, he came home to compose this garden. It took him fifteen years, patiently arranging, rearranging, meditating, assessing. Sometimes he'd study it for hours, slowly crouch, and cautiously shift a few pebbles. Before he died in the hospital after being struck by a car, one of the last things he told me was that he regretted not having the chance to complete his garden. I'm still working on it for him.”

Rachel touched his arm. “It's beautiful.”

“Arigato.”
Akira swallowed, stood straighter as if repressing emotion, and gestured toward the elderly Japanese woman.’ ‘This is Eko. She used to tend house for my father.” He spoke in Japanese to her.

Amid the unfamiliar words, Savage heard his name and Rachel's.

Eko bowed.

Savage and Rachel did the same.

Footsteps crunched on the path. Savage saw a slender young man approach from the house. His face was narrow, his forehead high. He wore sandals, as did Eko, and a beige karate
gi
with a brown belt tied around it.

“This is Churi, Eko's grandson,” Akira said. Returning Churi's smile and bow, Akira spoke warmly to him and completed the introductions.

Churi bowed.

Again Savage and Rachel did the same.

“When I'm home,” Akira said, “I try to be Churi's
sensei.
He's made excellent progress in the martial arts, though his use of the sword needs improvement. Neither Churi nor Eko speak English, by the way, but I'm sure you'll find that they anticipate your needs.”

“We're grateful for your hospitality,” Rachel said.

“Your spirit is Japanese.” Akira studied her with appreciation, then said something to Eko and Churi, who quickly departed. “I'd be honored,” he told Savage and Rachel, “if you'd enter my home.”

4

In shadows, on a low porch beneath the roof's overhang, Savage removed his shoes, making a point to do so before Akira removed his own. He wanted to let Akira know he remembered what Akira had told him prior to leaving Dulles Airport. Rachel followed his example. Akira nodded approvingly, set his shoes next to theirs, and opened the door, stepping back to let them enter before him.

The lamps at each window cast a warm glow over the room. Savoring the fragrance of incense, Savage admired the burnished cedar beams across the ceiling, the space between and above them making the small room seem spacious. The walls were white, in latticed sections, made of paper upon which objects from other rooms cast shadows. The floor was covered by rectangular rice-straw mats that Akira had explained were called
tatami.
Their resilient woven fibers had a massaging effect on Savage's stockinged feet.

Rachel approached a pen-and-ink drawing that hung on a wall. With economical vividness, it depicted a dove on a leafless branch. “I don't think I've ever seen anything so …” When she turned away, her eyes glistened.

“From the sixteenth century,” Akira said. “It's a hobby of mine. Collecting classical Japanese art. An
expensive
hobby, to be sure. But it gives me satisfaction.” He reached toward a section of a wall and slid it to the right, creating a door to another room. “Would you care to see others?”

“Please.”

For the next twenty minutes, Savage was stunned by beauty. His eerie sensation of having been transported back in time intensified as Akira led them from room to room, opening and closing sections of walls, displaying increasingly impressive artworks. Silk screens, sculptures, ceramics, more pen-and-inks. The elegant simplicity of the images, sometimes of nature, sometimes of soldiers in combat, made Savage frequently hold his breath, as if to breathe would disturb the subtlety of his pleasure.

“Everything I've shown you has a common element,” Akira said. “They were all created by samurai.”

Rachel looked surprised.

“Men of war devoting themselves to the arts of peace,” Akira said.

Savage remembered what Akira had explained. The samurai had come into prominence during the twelfth century when regional warlords, known as
daimyo,
needed fiercely loyal warrior-protectors to control their domains. The following century, Zen Buddhism was introduced to Japan from Korea. That religion's insistence on disciplining both the body and the spirit appealed to the samurai, who realized the practical value of making their sword arms an extension of their souls. To act without thought—to respond instantaneously to instinct—insured victory over an enemy who had to plan before he struck. An extra advantage was that Zen Buddhism encouraged meditation whereby one was purged of emotion and achieved a stillness at one's core. The samurai trained themselves to be neither fearful of death nor hopeful of victory and thus entered combat with a neutral attentiveness, indifferent to—but prepared for—the violent demands of each instant.

“For a time, the ruling class despised the crude warriors they depended on for their safety,” Akira said. “The samurai responded by teaching themselves courtly arts and eventually displacing the snobbish elite who ridiculed them. These paintings, sculptures, and ceramics are perfect examples of the samurai's devotion to Zen. All soothe the spirit. All produce peace of mind and soul. But the ultimate samurai artwork is the sword.”

Akira slid open another section of wall, leading Savage and Rachel toward scabbarded swords arranged on a wall.

“A samurai meditated before creating the instrument of his profession. After purifying himself, he then purified his workshop, put on a white robe, and began the slow, patient, arduous process of layering steel upon steel, repeatedly heating, folding, and hammering these layers until he achieved an ideal resilience, so the sword would adapt to stress, and an ideal hardness, so the blade would retain its edge: similar to the spirit and the body of the samurai. The long sword was used in battle. And this, the short sword”—Akira removed one from the wall and unsheathed it, turning it this way and that so the polished blade gleamed with reflected light—”was used for ritual suicide.
Seppuku.
If a samurai failed in combat or inadvertently offended his lord, it was his duty to kill himself by disembowelment, the ultimate test of his code of honor.” Akira sighed, sheathed the blade, and hung it back on the wall. “I'm behaving like a Westerner. Forgive me for talking too much.”

“Not at all. I was fascinated,” Rachel said.

“You're very kind.” Akira seemed about to say something else but turned as Eko entered, bowed, and spoke to him. “Good. Our bath is ready.”

5

They took turns using a gleaming white shower stall at the rear of the house, wrapped towels around themselves, and met on a softly lit porch in back.

“Cleansing oneself is only a preliminary to bathing,” Akira said. “To bathe, one must soak.”

“A hot tub?”
Rachel was amazed.

“Along with electricity and indoor plumbing, one of my compromises with the twentieth century. A useful way to keep the water at the necessary temperature.”

The tub was sided with cedar wood, though its interior was made of plastic. It stood on the left end of the porch, the overhang providing privacy. Steam rose off the water.

Rachel mounted steps to a platform, put a foot in the tub, and at once jerked back. “It's scalding!”

“It will seem so at first,” Akira said. “Enter slowly. Your body will adjust.”

She didn't look convinced.

“A bath must be very warm,” Akira assured her. To prove his point, he got in the tub without hesitation and submerged himself to the neck.

Biting her lip, Rachel eased down.

Savage joined them, abruptly thrashed, and almost scrambled out. “My God, it's hot!”

Rachel roared with laughter.

Her outburst made Savage laugh as well. He splashed water at her. That made Akira start laughing, and Savage splashed water at
him.

As their laughter subsided, Savage realized that the temperature no longer felt oppressive. Indeed it penetrated knotted muscles, loosening cramps in his legs and back, relieving the fatigue of seventeen hours in an airplane. He leaned back on a ledge along the tub, the soothing hot water above his shoulders, and admired Rachel.

Her hair—wet from the shower—was combed back behind her ears. It emphasized the shape of her head, the elegant contours of her face. Steam glistened on her cheeks and gave them color. Her blue eyes were still bright with laughter, reminding him of sapphires. He felt her nudge his foot with her toe. He smiled and glanced past the porch toward the garden at the back of the house.

Though dusk had turned into darkness, the glow from the lamps in the windows and the light on the porch allowed him to see the indistinct shapes of rocks and shrubs among sand.

Beyond, he heard water trickling.

“There's a pool you can't see in the dark,” Akira said as if knowing what Savage thought.

“With goldfish and lily pads?”

“It wouldn't be a pool without them.”

“Naturally.” Savage kept smiling.

“It feels so … Why would you ever leave here?” Rachel asked.

“To be useful.”

“That's our trouble,” Savage said.

“Not our only trouble,” Akira added and broke the spell, bringing Savage from the past to the present. “I haven't been in Japan since Muto Kamichi hired me to protect him.”