Stephen Hunter - The 47th samurai

Major Fujikawa approached the kneeling man.

He spoke in Japanese, but Captain Tanada whispered the translation in Bob’s ear.

“Miwa Yuichi, this is the sword Asano retainer Oishi used in the fifteenth year of Genroku to behead Kira, who had betrayed his lord. It’s the blade that was presented to Philip Yano by this American, and had become ancestral to the Yanos by reason of Major Hideki Yano’s last battle with it on Iwo Jima. It is the blade you murdered Philip Yano and his family to obtain, for reasons of career and ambition, you who have so much, who wanted so much more. I, Fujikawa Albert, of the First Airborne Brigade of the Japanese Self-Defense Force and former executive officer of Philip Yano, claim a retainer’s right by ancient tradition to avenge the death of my lord. I do offer you a choice. If you wish, you may use the sword to end your own life, and thereby, in samurai eyes, regain your good name and honor. If not, I shall execute you like a common criminal.”

Miwa’s chest puffed importantly.

“Do what you will. Just know you are killing a man of vision. I will say that the deaths of Yano-san and family were necessary. I fight to keep Japan whole and pure. I stand for the old Japan. I fight the foreigners, and Yano-san, as is well known, had sided with the foreigners. Now, you kill me. That is your way; I would not talk you out of petty vengeance that only attests to your smallness as men. But when I die, a part of Japan dies. Let it be said, I gave you my neck, and in nights far distant, many will regret what you have done and who you have killed.”

The snow fell, drifting this way and that, covering all, cloaking all sound. The moment was silent. Even the prisoners, secured on the ground, watched with respect, acknowledging the ultimate meaning of the moment. The old man leaned forward, stretching his thin neck for not merely the ease of the executioner but also for his own ease, and the major set himself. He offered his blade for cleansing; a bottle of Fuji was emptied upon it, consecrating it. Then the major stepped into a fluid shinchokugiri, the straight vertical, and the polished blade sang in the cold air. The separation was almost bloodless. The head fell with the thud of a book hitting the floor. Then the body pitched forward, twitched, and went still. A red flow began to print odd patterns onto the snow.

The major performed a quick chiburi, flinging the blood off the blade to form a spray of red abstraction in a snowpile, then someone began to play “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

It wasn’t until “proof through the night that our flag was still there” that Swagger realized he was the source of the music; it was the ringing of the forgotten cellular phone that Kondo had given him to manage his transit to the point of exchange.

He flicked it open.

“It’s five thirty a.m. As I said I would, I call you. We have some business,” said Kondo Isami.

“We do,” said Bob. “Time and place, please.”

“It’s not so far, gaijin. It’s next door, over the wall, quite a lovely place. Kiyosumi Gardens. Turn left at the pond. Look to the left. I await you on an island. I’ll be easy to find. I’m the one with the sword.”

Swagger turned and strode out the gate, the Muramasa blade over his shoulder, the folds of his hakama jacket tied back by a figure eight of rope around his shoulder, his obi tight, his creases still sharp. He turned right on the little street, walked fifty yards, then diverted to the left through the open gate of Kiyosumi Gardens in the somber rise of light.

He entered a kind of wonderland. Light snow lay upon everything, as did the utter tranquillity of dawn. Before him he saw the pond, a flat sheet of reflection, its surface broken now and then by the ripple of one of the ceremonial carp the size of trout breaking the surface in a flash of golden torso. In one corner, reeds, still green because their verticality gave snow no purchase, waved ever gently, more on their own internal vibration than by any force of atmosphere. Across the way, a pavilion, ivory with a sequence of tile roofs and the elfin upturn of Asian style over stout mahogany pillars and a sea of paned, opaque windows, supported its own mantle of snow. The trees were variously dressed in white as well, the pines supporting it, the willows less cooperative and, like the reeds, still mostly green. Ducks cruised, the big fish fed, the snow lay crisp as sugar, everything was etched to a woodcut genius’s perfection. No modern buildings could be seen. It was a haiku called “Garden, 5:32 a.m., Break of Dawn.” He might have added, “ 1702.”

He saw the man standing on an island to the left, still a hundred quiet yards away. Swagger followed the path, skipping over rocks where they transected a cove for a shortcut, ducked under willows, turned again to find a wooden bridge, and crossed to the island.

The circle of earth lay possibly thirty feet across, with a shore of rocks artfully arranged, some glazed white in snow. Its trees were willows, bent with their own load of snow, the white on the green, the whole painted magenta by ribbons of sunlight broken through and captured on the surface of the low, dense clouds. Now and then a bubble popped, as a fat carp came up in search of food or merely to belch.

Kondo stood, one hip cocked, with a warrior’s utter narcissism. Like Swagger, he held the saya over a shoulder, almost like a rifle. A smirk marked the handsome face on the square, symmetrical head. He looked like a jazz musician ready for a riff or a ballplayer in the on-deck circle, his muscularity held taut under a black, formal kimono, his radiant vitality almost a heat vapor off his posture.

“So,” he said as Swagger approached, “did Miwa die well?”

“Not particularly,” said Swagger. “He gave some bullshit speech.”

“Alas, I heard it many times. You, Swagger-san, I know you will die well.”

“I doubt it,” said Swagger. “I plan on screaming like a baby. But since it ain’t happening for thirty more years, it ain’t worth worrying about now.”

The jibe brought a sharper smile to Kondo’s confident face. Then he noticed something.

“Oh, I see my father gave you Muramasa’s blade. He actually still believes in all that crap. It’ll be a pleasure to give it back to him without comment this afternoon. He’ll know what it means. That will be my revenge on him. Oh, what a warm family moment.”

“What he’ll get is a bag with your head in it.”

“If Dad’s been helping, that means he sent you to Doshu. I studied with Doshu too. It’s too bad, you know; you can only get so far with Doshu. You’re limited by Doshu’s imagination. You better have more than eight cuts if you’re going to last a minute against me. And when I take your head, Doshu will hear too. I wish I could see that.”

“You must be nervous. You talk too much. I come to fight, not talk.”

“No, I am not nervous, I am eager. This is a red-letter day for me. I didn’t help Miwa win his dirty movie election, but so what? As I say, he was only a pornographer. But I am about to fight and defeat a really great samurai, as I have dreamed of for years. Then I will have defeated in proxy my father, and as he is the living memory of samurai in Japan, I will have entered legend.”

“You’re talking so much you must think you have all the time in the world.”

“I do. And let me tell you why. I have genius, and genius always triumphs. It’s the law of genetics. I have a thousand years of swordsmen’s blood in my veins. Then I have experience. I’ve fought man on man to the death thirty-two times and won all. I know what happens in a duel. I have strength and stamina. I have foreknowledge: I know Doshu’s style and the eight cuts he taught you, and I can easily counter every one with either hand. I also know your particular style: the cuts are shaky, except for your best, migi kiriage, and your footwork is always suspect,” said Kondo.