Kato had given Harry a print to deliver when Oharu asked him to see a matinee of a Chaplin film with her. Gen knew the address and took the print in Harry’s stead. The film was hilarious, Charlie in a department store, running down the up escalator and up the down escalator while the Movie Man sat before the screen and delivered a thoroughly superfluous “Up, up, up! Down, down, down!” Oharu rested her hand lightly on Harry’s, and throughout the film, he stole glances at it and debated whether to turn his hand and hold hers or put his lips to the pale column of her throat. He did neither. Decorum was strictly maintained in movie houses. Where aisles were lit, ushers were required to wear underpants, and houselights were never dim enough to encourage physical intimacies in the audience. What stopped Harry, however, wasn’t rules but fear. He was contemptuous of cowards and didn’t understand the paralysis that came over him around Oharu. He could tease and joke with her, but anything serious caught in his throat.
It wasn’t until Oharu left to change for her own show at the Folies that Harry realized Gen had not returned to the movie as they’d agreed. Hours had passed. By virtue of his height and looks, Gen usually stood out, but Harry didn’t find him on the Rokku, in Asakusa Park or on the temple grounds. He visited Gen’s house, the card game at the aquarium, their favorite café. Gen wasn’t anywhere. Kato had expected Harry to deliver the print, and Harry had never let him down before.
Finally Harry took a tram across town to the customer’s address, the same place he had delivered the print of Chizuko, a wooden row house that had been taken over and consolidated by someone with money. The customer answered Harry’s knock wearing an airy summer kimono. He was in his mid-twenties, broad-shouldered with muscular calves, built all of a piece like a bear. Handsome was too pretty a word. Domineering with black-rimmed gray eyes under heavy brows, a man with the gravitational pull of a larger planet.
His attention wandered down to Harry. “You’re Gen’s friend. You’ve been here before.”
“Yes. I am so sorry to bother you, excuse me, but would you do me the favor of telling me when Gen left?”
The customer scanned the street once more before he gestured for Harry to remove his shoes and enter. Harry followed to what were very much man’s quarters, a room dominated by a sea captain’s desk and Persian rug. Any middle-class house had a European room, but this seemed to be the real thing. A boar’s head was mounted by a selection of Kato’s demon prints, a satin bed of medals and an officer’s tunic with a shoulder torn off and stained a rust color. The dial of a radio glowed in the corner, although the music, a lied, was turned to a whisper. On the opposite wall were Kato’s battlefield prints and a ladder of European sabers and Japanese swords. A Westminster clock ticked on the mantel. Oriental pillows were strewn around a low Moorish table set with cognac and dates. Gen lay on a pillow on his side, his eyes swimming but with a curious pride that played around his lips.
The customer sank into an armchair. He said, “Gen is interested in the military life. I was telling him all about it.”
In Japanese, the brushstrokes of a single character could define a writer’s class and education. The casually rich room, the few words from the customer, their intonation at once formal and negligent, suggested the royal Peers’ School, university, travel abroad. In an army officer’s case, that would have been Berlin.
“We’re wasting your time,” Harry said and hoped Gen would get to his feet.
“Not a bit. Gen has a great deal of promise.”
“He delivered the print?”
The customer gave thought to his answer. “Yes, he delivered the print, and we fell into conversation. You’re not Japanese at all, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Ah.” He bestowed a smile on Gen, who lit as if a lamp had been turned his way. The customer stretched out his bare feet and considered Harry. The smell of fresh sweat hung in the air, along with a leathery scent of cigars. In one corner, a dummy in a kendo mask and armor held a wooden stave. Harry noticed murky photographs of equestrian events, an engraved trophy for something, a gilded citation in German and a side table holding a vase with a single white chrysanthemum. The customer seemed to have accomplished a great deal for his young age. There was a restlessness about him that suggested a coil under pressure. What Harry could see of the rest of the apartment was a thoroughly Japanese arrangement of screens and mats, but this European parlor had the personal shadows of a lair. The customer suddenly heaved himself out of his chair and asked Harry, “What do you know about swords?”
“The sword is the soul of the samurai.”
“Quite right. And the samurai is the sword of the emperor. Try this. One hand.” The customer lifted from its mount not a Japanese sword but a Western saber with blood channels and a rounded guard. With only one hand, Harry could barely hold its weight. “Meant for horseback, really. The rider impales a man on foot, and the force of the horse’s charge throws the victim over the rider’s shoulder. Very mechanical. It even feels like a piece of machinery, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” In Harry’s hands, the saber felt like a giant wrench.
“I will give the Germans this. When they fence, they hack at each other until they’re bloody, they don’t back down. The scars are most impressive.”
“But they don’t perform seppuku, do they?” Gen said.
“No, it is strictly Japanese to take one’s life by cutting the stomach open. It’s an honor that has unfortunately become degraded. Today someone barely pricks his stomach before a friend cuts off his head.”
“Have you ever seen it?” Gen asked.
The customer didn’t answer directly. “Even the beheading is sloppy. You have to cut through the neck, not at it. It helps to shout.”
I’ll bet, thought Harry.
“You take kendo at school?” the customer asked.
“Yes,” said Harry.
“Who is the best swordsman?”
“Gen.”
“I’m not surprised. He is a model of youth.”
“Harry is usually a target,” Gen said.
“A target, if he’s brave, can learn more than anyone else,” the customer said. His breath was sweet from cognac. He ran his hand from Harry’s shoulder blades to the base of his spine. “Stronger than you look. Now try this.” He took the saber from Harry and replaced it with a samurai sword. The blade was narrow and tapered, its length marked by a wavy temper line between the steel of the edge and a darker, softer iron core. Although it was longer than the saber, and its grip was stripped to show the maker’s signature stamped into the bare tang, the sword was a two-handed weapon that Harry held comfortably. Even still, it seemed in motion. “A blade of the Bizen school, the edge as sharp as a razor. The first so-called reform of Japan after the West forced its way in was to forbid samurai from carrying their swords. Thousands of swords were melted down to make bookends, souls turned into knickknacks and souvenirs. Hold it lightly, as lightly as you should hold your life.” The customer squared Harry’s shoulders and hips, hands like a sculptor’s molding clay. When Harry twitched the man’s hand off, he took Harry by the head and aimed his attention to the sword. “Do you know how a blade is made so fine and so hard? The metal is beaten and folded and beaten a hundred times, and then a hundred times more, and then another hundred, the same way a man is made into a soldier. That is why a Japanese soldier can march in his sleep, can stand at attention while the ice forms on his face. The sword is worn with its blade up so that the act of drawing becomes the act of attack. The curve of the blade puts the sword as it’s drawn at the most efficient angle to strike an enemy. Every parry carries within it a thrust. That is the Yamato spirit. Hold the sword straight out. You take bayonet, too?”