The Samurai Strategy Part 22

After the stunning j.a.panese bloodbath at Saipan, which demonstrated the war was clearly lost, he'd been one of those imprudent citizens who'd spoken out publicly for peace. Not surprisingly, he was immediately placed under surveillance by the Kempei Tai, j.a.pan's secret police, and shortly thereafter jailed.

After three months' internment he was released a broken man. A week later he committed ritual _seppuku_, disemboweling himself for the crime of having disgraced the family.

Toshi Noda's diaries, published posthumously and read widely in j.a.pan, revealed his deep repugnance for the wartime

government. He believed that Prime Minister Tojo had become, in effect, a neo-shogun. Although the shogunate supposedly had been abolished when Emperor Meiji took control and opened j.a.pan in 1867, Toshi Noda saw it restored with Tojo, another "shogun" who had come along and isolated the country once again. Nonetheless, he'd been a man of few words. His death poem, written only moments before he put the knife to his stomach, was as simple and intense as his life.

_Darkness upon Yamato,

Land of the G.o.ds,

Awaits the new dawn--

Ten-no-Heika.

_

That last was a traditional phrase that, simply translated, meant "son of heaven." For a j.a.panese, though, the overtones are more; they say "the way of the emperor."

Subsequent history proved him prescient on several points--the main one being that militarism was a disaster for j.a.pan. Also, he had rightly feared that the monarchy would become an empty symbol in the ruins of Tojo's hopeless war. Although he hadn't lived to see Tojo tried and hanged as a criminal, he had predicted the outcome of the war unerringly--and he'd insisted that his infant daughter be evacuated to Sasayama just before the Allies moved in for the kill. Because of his foresight she escaped the first firebombing of Tokyo, which converted the city into a giant death oven for eighty thousand innocent j.a.panese civilians too old or young to escape. America's pragmatic "final solution": Auschwitz with airborne incendiaries. The rest of Toshi Noda's family was burned alive.

Afterward Matsuo Noda had complied with another of Toshi Noda's wishes and made certain his daughter received a first-cla.s.s education. Since she had a natural instinct for economics he'd encouraged her, rightly foreseeing it as a discipline vital to j.a.pan in the twenty-first century. She had excelled beyond his fondest expectations; she was in fact brilliant. As a result he grew to dote on her, to an extent that eventually grew almost obsessive. He'd even made her his heir, since he had none of his own. His fortune was rumored to be in the tens of millions.

Probably the most important thing to keep in mind about

Akira Mori, Ken had concluded, was that she merely looked _avant- garde_. Inside she lived in another age. In fact he suspected the reason she'd never married had something to do with the fact she was already wed: to the vision of j.a.pan's powerful, sacred Imperial past.

On the trip down to Ise, Mori had silently sipped her green tea while Noda chatted with Asano about the costs and timing of commercializing the intelligent machines that would come out of the Fifth Generation Project. Although Noda stuck to generalities, it was clear he was totally conversant with the latest developments in the field. In fact, Tam found herself thinking, he seemed to know anything there was to know about just about everything. He displayed the same obsession with j.a.pan's technological future that the old-time shoguns must have had about the goings-on of their va.s.sals.

She also sensed that he and Asano were doing a lot of their communicating in a verbal shorthand, enough so that she began to suspect they had worked together before: they were like father and son, each antic.i.p.ating the other's thoughts and conclusions.

By the time they reached Ise it was already late afternoon, but Noda's driver had phoned ahead from the car and arranged rooms for the night at the local spa, so they wouldn't have to go back late. She noticed there hadn't been any talk about the famous Sword, but she figured maybe he was saving that for dinner.

The museum Noda planned was to be built outside the shrine proper, just before you crossed the wide, arched Uji Bridge spanning the Isuzu River that separated Shinto's holy ground from the ordinary world. The shrine itself, a collection of thatched-roof buildings in severe traditional style, was hidden down a long trail among giant cryptomeria trees that towered hundreds of feet into the pale afternoon sky.

Attesting to the speed with which things can happen in j.a.pan when there's the go-ahead from above, the location had already been staked and the trees cleared. Excavation for the foundation merely awaited Noda's approval. While everybody else stood around and waited, he consulted with the site engineer, checked over the plans, and made a few final changes. All the while, onlookers were bowing to him right and left. He'd become, overnight, an authentic j.a.panese legend.

After finishing with the engineer, he suggested they stroll on down to pay respects at the shrine itself, since they'd come all this way.

Their burly chauffeur suddenly became a bodyguard, clearing the path ahead. Noda was expansive now, presumably confident his niche in history was secure. As they were crossing the wooden bridge, he casually asked Tam what she knew about the Sword.

A one-of-a-kind historical find, she replied. Important and fascinating. She'd seen the Emperor on TV. . . .

"I a.s.sumed you would understand its significance." He was leading the way down the path. "Perhaps then you'll indulge me a moment for an ancient tale about it."

By now the entire shrine had been cleared of tourists and they were surrounded only by bowing and smiling priests in white robes: the VIP treatment. "The Imperial sword harkens back in a way to our version of Adam and Eve. Except, according to our own creation story, they were also the ones who created j.a.pan; they were the original _kami_."

"The original j.a.panese G.o.ds."

"Well, perhaps 'G.o.d' is too strong a term, Dr. Richardson. I prefer to think of our _kami_ as merely spirits of life." Noda shrugged, then continued. "According to the myth, the first male and female _kami_ stirred the sea with a long spear, then lifted it, and the brine that dropped from its tip piled up and became j.a.pan."

She caught herself smiling. "I've always wondered what Freud would have thought of that."

Mori glared at her in a way that suggested some offense at her irreverence, while MIT-educated Ken merely stifled a grin. Noda, however, took the quip in stride.

"Freud? Ah, yes, your philosopher. I seem to recall he's the one who regarded almost everything as some manifestation of our s.e.xual appet.i.te. Well, these are primitive stories, Dr. Richardson, that describe the beginning of life. I suppose they should be somewhat earthy, wouldn't you agree?" He chuckled. "Nonetheless, according to our early tales, the Sun G.o.ddess--whose shrine this is--was created out of the left eye, the side of honor, of the first male _kami_, and the Moon G.o.d was created out of his right. Then they ascended into the skies."

She glanced up. The Sun G.o.ddess appeared to be headed for bed, the sky itself barely light through the cryptomeria. The air was beginning to grow slightly crisp.

"Now we come to the sword. When the Sun G.o.ddess finally sent her grandson down to rule over the mortals below, he brought with him the three items that became the emblems of Imperial rule. They were the sacred mirror, signifying purity, a curved bead necklace, used to ward off evil spirits, and the sword, standing for courage. The great grandson of that first earthbound immortal extended his dominion over all of j.a.pan and became the first emperor. We are told his name was Jimmu, and the legends say that was around 660 B.C."

"_So desu_," Miss Mori interjected abruptly, startling even Ken. She seemed to be lecturing directly to Tam. "We all know our Emperor today is directly descended from him. In fact, he is precisely the one hundred and twenty-fourth emperor after Jimmu. j.a.pan and the Imperial line were born simultaneously, and every j.a.panese is related to him. We are a monoracial state."

Tam glanced at her. By G.o.d, she wasn't kidding.

"Well, it's possible the traditional account has reworked historical facts a trifle," Noda continued smoothly. "Actually the peoples who became our modern j.a.panese seem to have made their way here to the main island from somewhere in the South Pacific and settled in this area around Ise. Near here we still find burial mounds that contain replicas of their early symbols of Imperial authority--mirrors, gems, swords."

"But the sword you found? Did it really come down from on high?" Tam asked, half hoping to rankle Akira Mori.

"You mean was it that very first one?" Noda shrugged. "Who could locate the original Garden of Eden? Please, we all must allow for a certain element of poetic license in our myths. But it is unquestionably the sword referred to in the ancient chronicles such as the Heite Monogatari, which dates from the Heian era, the ninth through twelfth centuries. That sword was lost in 1185, and now it's been recovered.

That's all we know for sure."

Mori, walking along in her quick, j.a.panese-woman pace, obviously was not satisfied with Noda's rationalist version of history.

"Dr. Richardson," she cut in again, "what the recovery of the sword has achieved is to remind the j.a.panese people that we are unique. We j.a.panese have a special soul, a Yamato _minzoku _of pure blood and spiritual unity. All j.a.panese are related to each other and to the Emperor, so there is a oneness of spirit, a blood-and-soul relation, between the Emperor and his people. Yamatoists believe, rightly, that a temporary eclipse of our j.a.panese _minzoku_ was brought about by the American occupation, whose imposed const.i.tution and educational system were acts of racial revenge against j.a.pan. Our postwar ident.i.ty crisis, our negative image of ourselves, was created by Americans. But that time is over. Although we have no single G.o.d, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have something even more powerful. Through our Emperor we have a line of descent that harkens back to the beginning of our world.

Perhaps we no longer choose to claim he is divine, but that makes him no less an embodiment of j.a.pan's special place."

Akira Mori, Tam suddenly realized, was a closet Yamatoist, those new right-wing racist firebrands of modern j.a.pan. Time to give her a little heat.

"Surely n.o.body today seriously thinks the Emperor's forefather came down from the skies?" She turned back to Noda. "You don't believe it, do you?"

He shrugged. "Ours is a skeptical world, Dr. Richardson. Is your pope really infallible, or did he acquire his right to be divine spokesman by winning a small election? Nonetheless, popes and kings are like ancient tribal leaders. Despite all our modern democracy, we still yearn for a figure to embody our ident.i.ty. For the j.a.panese to have an emperor who, if only in legend, has blood kinship with the G.o.ds who created our homeland--what could be more important?"

About that time Tam glanced up and realized they were pa.s.sing under a large _torii _gate, entryway to a place that seemingly had nothing to do with the real world. Just beyond were the shrines, reminding her somewhat of a sanitized tropical village as imagined by Hollywood. Each of the cypress-wood buildings, set above the ground on stilts, was architecture at its most primal, a study in simplicity. Their polished wood was untouched by a speck of paint, while the foot-thick blanket of woven straw comprising their roofs had a creamy texture that looked like cheesecake. There was nothing in the world to compare.

What really made them unique, though, was something else entirely.

Although the shrines were merely straw and natural wood, possessing none of the centuries-old authority of the cathedrals of Europe, in a curious way they were actually

older, for they had been rebuilt anew every twenty years since time immemorial.

Suddenly the real significance of that struck her. What other people had kept alive such a powerful symbol of their common heritage for centuries and centuries? Westerners had difficulty grasping the continuity this shrine represented. Little wonder Noda could galvanize his clan with some powerful new reminder of who they were. Shinto wasn't a religion; there were few rules and no payoff in the sky.

Instead it was the mortar binding a race.

"The main shrines over there," he continued, pointing to a collection of buildings in an area enclosed by a high wooden fence, "are off limits to all save the Emperor himself and certain of the priests. That ground is the sacred link between our Emperor living now and those of times past. Even photographs are forbidden."

Tam noticed that many of the gables of the buildings were tipped in gold, burning amber when an occasional shaft of late sunlight reflected off them. Dusk was starting to settle in, and the evening birds and crickets had begun to add their eerie sound effects. She found herself deeply touched. What was it about the place that inspired such reverence? Was it the serenity? The purity?

Yes, this Shinto holy of holies possessed a secret power, the una.s.sailable strength of nature. It moved her; how could it not?