The Samurai Strategy Part 26

Well, not quite: on the back wall was the traditional picture alcove, _tokonoma_, in which a seventeenth-century ink-wash scroll hung above a weathered vase holding three spare blossoms. Their room had no keys, no clocks, no television. It was a coc.o.o.n for the spirit, a place of textured woods, crisp _tatami_, lacquer, and rice-paper.

The woman deposited their bags on the black-bordered _tatami_, consulted briefly with Ken concerning dinner, then backed, bowing, out of the room, leaving them alone together in another time.

"Ken, this is perfect. I needed someplace like this."

"We both did." He embraced her. "They're running our tub now. Afterward I have another surprise for you."

"What?"

"Allow me some mystery."

Whatever he had planned, she couldn't wait to throw off her clothes, don a loose cotton yukata robe, and pad with him down to the little wood-lined room where their steaming bath awaited. The floor was red tile, the walls scented Chinese black pine, the ma.s.sive tub cedar with rivulets of steam escaping through cracks in its cypress cover.

While they perched on little stools beside the tub, he soaped her back, occasionally dousing her with the bucket of lukewarm water. Then she did the same for him, watching half mesmerized as the soapy bubbles flowed off his shoulders, broad and strong. Almost like an athlete's.

Finally they climbed in, and amidst the cloud of vapor her last remaining tensions melted away.

"You know, I think of you every time I come to Kyoto, wanting to lure you back." He reached for the brush and began to gently ma.s.sage her neck. "I honestly never dreamed Matsuo Noda would come along and try to hire you." He paused. "I wish I could help you make your decision. But the most I can do is warn you to be careful."

What are you telling me? she wondered.

"Ken, you seem troubled about something. What is it?"

"Tamara, powerful forces are at play here, beyond the control of either of us. Things may not always be what they seem. Just be aware of that.

But please don't ask me any more. Just look out for yourself."

"I've had a lifetime of looking out for myself. I can handle Matsuo Noda."

"Just don't ever underestimate him. He's not like anyone you've ever known before. The man is pure genius, probably the most visionary, powerful mind in the history of this country. You've met your match."

"That remains to be seen." She leaned back. Ken was challenging her now. On purpose? Maybe he figured that was

the only bait she would rise to. He wanted her to play along with Noda, but he wouldn't tell her why.

After they'd simmered to medium rare, heading for well done, they climbed out, toweled each other off, slipped back into their yukatas once again, and glided back to the room. She noticed that an interior screen had been pushed aside, opening onto another _tatami_ room where a thin futon mattress had already been unrolled and prepared with white sheets and a thick brocade coverlet. Hot tea waited on their little lacquer table, but their bags had disappeared. She checked behind a pair of sliding doors and saw that all her things had been neatly shelved by some invisible caretaker. Even the clothes she'd been wearing were already hung in the closet.

"Now for my surprise." He was slipping on a black silk kimono. "They have a special little garden here that only a few people know about.

I've arranged everything."

"Shouldn't I change too for whatever it is we're doing?"

"Theoretically, yes. But formality doesn't suit you." He cinched his _obi_. "Come on. You can be formally informal."

He led the way to the end of the veranda where they each put on the wooden clogs that were waiting. Then they pa.s.sed through a bamboo gate into yet another landscape, this one lit by candles set in stone lanterns. At the back stood a small one-room structure of thatch, reed, and unfinished wood. A teahouse.

"Tam, can you sit here for a second, in the waiting shelter?" He indicated a bench just inside the gate under a thatch overhang. "I'll only need a few minutes to prepare."

Off he went, clogs clicking along a string of stones nestled in among the mossy floor of the garden. He was following the _roji_, the "dewy path" that led to the teahouse half hidden among the trees at the back.

Unlike the _ryokan' s _larger garden, this one had no water; it was meant to recall a mountain walk. The s.p.a.ce was small, with natural trees, offering no illusion of being more than it was. But it was a cla.s.sic setting for tea, a kind of deliberate "poverty." While she watched the flickering stone lanterns and listened to the night crickets, the cacophony of Kyoto could have been eons away.

Finally Ken appeared beside the doorway of the teahouse and signaled her forward. As she moved along the stepping stones, she noticed that the pathway had been swept clean of

falling leaves, after which the gardener had strewn a few back to give it _wabi_, an unaffected natural look. The art of artlessness, she thought, as she paused at a stone water basin to rinse her mouth from its bamboo dipper, part of the preparatory ritual.

The _cha-no-yu _or "tea ceremony," she knew, required almost a lifetime to master completely. It was a seated ballet of nuance and perfect clarity of motion. One awkward gesture and its carefully orchestrated perfection could be spoiled. She hoped she could remember the rules well enough to get it right.

Ken was already seated across from her, tending a small charcoal brazier sunk into the _tatami_-matted floor. From its light she could just make out the room's rough-hewn timbers, the straw and mud walls, bark and bamboo ceiling. A small calligraphy scroll hung in the _tokonoma_ alcove. As he beckoned her formally to sit, the room was caught in an unearthly silence, the only sound the sonorous boiling of the kettle.

Ken was profoundly transformed, almost like another being. Warm and attentive only minutes before, now he was part of a different world, solemn and remote. The black silk of his kimono seemed to enforce the seriousness in his dark eyes.

She watched as he ritually wiped a thin, delicately curved bamboo scoop with a folded cloth, first touching the handle, then the uptilted end, after which he balanced it atop the lacquer tea caddy. Next he lifted the tea bowl, an earth-tone glaze that shifted from mauve to brown as he rotated it in his hand and wiped the rim. Finally he swabbed the bottom and positioned the bowl on the _tatami_ in front of him. Now the utensils had been formally cleansed. He was ready. From the tea caddy he spooned a mound of jade-green powdered tea and tapped it into the bowl. Then another, this last with a carefully prescribed twist of the scoop.

Next he extracted a dipperful of boiling water from the iron kettle and measured a portion into the bowl, lifted the bamboo whisk sitting inverted beside the bowl, and commenced a vigorous blending. The tea immediately began to resemble a pale green lather. Still no words, no sound save the whir of his whisk intruded upon the quiet of the room.

It was a moment hundreds of years old, framed in silence.

The economy of ideal form. That, she found herself thinking, was what this was all about: how flawlessly could you perform what seemed the most simple, humble act. And he was good. Whereas the mastery in his hands revealed itself by the control with which he whipped the tea, the rest of his body remained taut as a spring. Total discipline. Each tiny motion was distilled to its crystalline essence.

At last, when the green froth was ready, he gave the whisk a final half-turn, then set it aside. Next he lifted the bowl, rotated it in his hand, and placed it on the mat beside the open charcoal fire.

His part was over. It was as though the authority had been pa.s.sed. Ken had prepared the work; now it was her turn to take up and finish it.

Her role was different yet required its own kind of skill.

She bent forward and ceremonially shifted the bowl a short distance toward her. Then she scooted backward on the tatami and again moved the bowl closer. Was she doing it right? The flicker in Ken's eyes said yes.

Finally, with a bow of acknowledgment, she raised the bowl in both hands and brought it to her lips. After her first sip she bowed again, then drank it down as he watched in silent approval. The powdered green tea was harsh and bitter, just as she remembered from times past. Even for a j.a.panese it was difficult to feign appreciation of the musky beverage produced in the _cha-no-yu_.

She recalled what was next. With deliberate dignity she extracted a small napkin from the _obi _of her loose _yukata_, wiped the rim of the bowl, and placed it carefully onto the _tatami_ in front of her. The motion had to be quick, spare. Ken didn't try to disguise his pleasure; she had pa.s.sed some sort of crucial test.

And she told herself, he had too.

Together they had joined in one of the most demanding yet exquisite bonds two people can share. At that moment she felt--was it imagination?--like an ancient Fujiwara, celebrating some age-old tradition. . . .

The ceremony was over now. She bowed again, then lifted the bowl to admire the light crackle in the glaze, the slightly inturned lip.

"It's Raku. I think it's the finest I've ever seen."

"From my collection. It's by the hand of Chojiro, the seventeenth- century Korean who was in the employ of the Shogun Hideyoshi." He smiled. "I had it brought down to Kyoto especially for tonight. For you."

"I'm honored." She was.

After she had admired the rest of the utensils--the remaining formality of _cha-no-yu_--they both relaxed, their minds purged, their spirits attuned. Like the ceremony itself, the moment was esthetic and sensual.

"Tam, this has been a wonderful rebirth for me, being with you again.

You've helped revive in me so many feelings I'd almost forgotten. The joy of it all. Who could have known?" He leaned back and reached for a flask of plum wine. Formalities were definitely over. "As someone once wrote, 'Love. Its roots are deep. Its source unknowable.'" He was pouring two small gla.s.ses.

"That's from the Tsurezuregusa, fourteenth century. Right?"

"Again you amaze me. You really are j.a.panese."