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Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
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a victory in the Pacific that had been doomed by superior will and radiation.
Ushiba resisted putting the flat of his hand against his gut, swallowing a pill instead. Now he took three a day instead of one, and he struggled to keep his mind sharp in the face of the potent painkiller. Where would it lead? He suspected that he was already an addict, unable to face each day without the mask of calm the narcotic provided, damping the level of his suffering to tolerable levels.
He lit a cigarette, drew the smoke deep into his lungs. As he moved toward the shrine, he willed his legs into their normal stride, thinking as he did of the history of Yasukuni, how in the latter half of the 1930s it had become the focal point for the government-propagated right-wing demonstrations used to whip up the population into a militaristic frenzy.
Recently, a high court decided that ministers were forbidden to worship at the shrine in an official capacity because it violated the postwar constitution insisting upon a distinct separation between religion and the state. But, of course, that was an American-written constitution, and many ministers chose to ignore the court decision.
A few snowy-haired old men were at the shrine, soldiers no doubt, dreaming of the war and their part in it, remembering compatriots who were no longer with them. Ushiba ground his cigarette beneath his heel, then stood beside them. He rang the bell to wake the kami of the shrine, then clapped his hands twice, bowing his head in prayer.
He dropped some money between the red wooden slats of the collection box, then he went to the nearby building. It appeared closed for repairs because signs were up and uniformed workmen were scuttling all around it. On closer inspection, however, it was clear that these were no workmen.
One of them, the largest of the lot, glowered at Ushiba before recognizing him. Then he bowed deferentially, took up some tools, and stepped aside.
Ushiba went into the building, which was a museum commemorating the kamikaze dead. Tattered flags, banners, and hurried poems written in the blood of the heroes of the war adorned the walls, all of them carefully annotated.
And Ushiba, overcome with emotion, recalled a haiku:
The wind brings enough
of fallen leaves
To make a fire
One man was in the museum, tall, almost gangly, so thin his wrist bones were knobs. He turned when he heard Ushiba, and a slow smile spread across his face. This was Tetsuo Akinaga, oyabun of the Shikei clan, and the third member of the Kaisho’s inner council, which included Akira Chosa and Tachi Shidare, Tomoo Kozo’s successor. Not coincidentally, these were also the oyabun who had helped build the Godaishu with Mikio Okami. Since the Kaisho’s ouster, Ushiba’s role, it seemed, had expanded from adviser to full-fledged council member.
“A fitting place for us to meet, eh, Daijin?”
“Indeed.”
Akinaga had the right to call him by name, but the oyabun seemed to feel more comfortable using titles rather than names. Ushiba privately believed it helped Akinaga delineate in his mind the tangled webs of power that came together whenever the members of the Godaishu met.
He had steel gray hair that he kept unfashionably long, pulled back in the style of the old samurai. His flat cheeks and stubby, flat nose made his deep-set eyes even more startling. Like Chosa, he was in his late fifties, but he seemed older. Age and, Ushiba suspected, the compromises of power had turned the corners of his mouth down so that he appeared perpetually disapproving of whatever came to pass. He was a man who had seen the turn of the knife blade from foe to friend and therefore knew there was no substantive difference between the two.
“The quality of the silence here is extraordinary,” Akinaga said. “Like the hush that comes over the countryside just at sunset.” He laughed. “I fear I am becoming quite poetical in my old age.”
Ushiba, feeling the fire in his belly, understood. He
Ushiba resisted putting the flat of his hand against his gut, swallowing a pill instead. Now he took three a day instead of one, and he struggled to keep his mind sharp in the face of the potent painkiller. Where would it lead? He suspected that he was already an addict, unable to face each day without the mask of calm the narcotic provided, damping the level of his suffering to tolerable levels.
He lit a cigarette, drew the smoke deep into his lungs. As he moved toward the shrine, he willed his legs into their normal stride, thinking as he did of the history of Yasukuni, how in the latter half of the 1930s it had become the focal point for the government-propagated right-wing demonstrations used to whip up the population into a militaristic frenzy.
Recently, a high court decided that ministers were forbidden to worship at the shrine in an official capacity because it violated the postwar constitution insisting upon a distinct separation between religion and the state. But, of course, that was an American-written constitution, and many ministers chose to ignore the court decision.
A few snowy-haired old men were at the shrine, soldiers no doubt, dreaming of the war and their part in it, remembering compatriots who were no longer with them. Ushiba ground his cigarette beneath his heel, then stood beside them. He rang the bell to wake the kami of the shrine, then clapped his hands twice, bowing his head in prayer.
He dropped some money between the red wooden slats of the collection box, then he went to the nearby building. It appeared closed for repairs because signs were up and uniformed workmen were scuttling all around it. On closer inspection, however, it was clear that these were no workmen.
One of them, the largest of the lot, glowered at Ushiba before recognizing him. Then he bowed deferentially, took up some tools, and stepped aside.
Ushiba went into the building, which was a museum commemorating the kamikaze dead. Tattered flags, banners, and hurried poems written in the blood of the heroes of the war adorned the walls, all of them carefully annotated.
And Ushiba, overcome with emotion, recalled a haiku:
The wind brings enough
of fallen leaves
To make a fire
One man was in the museum, tall, almost gangly, so thin his wrist bones were knobs. He turned when he heard Ushiba, and a slow smile spread across his face. This was Tetsuo Akinaga, oyabun of the Shikei clan, and the third member of the Kaisho’s inner council, which included Akira Chosa and Tachi Shidare, Tomoo Kozo’s successor. Not coincidentally, these were also the oyabun who had helped build the Godaishu with Mikio Okami. Since the Kaisho’s ouster, Ushiba’s role, it seemed, had expanded from adviser to full-fledged council member.
“A fitting place for us to meet, eh, Daijin?”
“Indeed.”
Akinaga had the right to call him by name, but the oyabun seemed to feel more comfortable using titles rather than names. Ushiba privately believed it helped Akinaga delineate in his mind the tangled webs of power that came together whenever the members of the Godaishu met.
He had steel gray hair that he kept unfashionably long, pulled back in the style of the old samurai. His flat cheeks and stubby, flat nose made his deep-set eyes even more startling. Like Chosa, he was in his late fifties, but he seemed older. Age and, Ushiba suspected, the compromises of power had turned the corners of his mouth down so that he appeared perpetually disapproving of whatever came to pass. He was a man who had seen the turn of the knife blade from foe to friend and therefore knew there was no substantive difference between the two.
“The quality of the silence here is extraordinary,” Akinaga said. “Like the hush that comes over the countryside just at sunset.” He laughed. “I fear I am becoming quite poetical in my old age.”
Ushiba, feeling the fire in his belly, understood. He
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