Properly speaking, it should have been Mr Hiroshige’s job to paint the windows, just as it ought to have been Mr Miroku’s job to strip off the old wallpaper and Mr Suzuki’s job to emulsion the ceiling, while the roster pinned to the kitchen door had Mr Funiyami, Mr Kawaguchi and Mr Wakisashi chipping out the old putty in the windows. But they had, with characteristic generosity, allowed their young colleague to further his education in the Way by performing these simple exercises, while they sat around making sure that the significance of it all wasn’t lost on him. It was, after all, the traditional method of teaching the finer points of philosophy; they’d all had to do it when they’d been Mr Akira’s age, and now it was their turn, as they saw it, to put something back into the didactic process. For his part, Mr Akira was honoured, he supposed, and flattered, presumably, to be allowed to perform these tasks in the names of his elders and betters. They were, after all, entrusting him with their honour; if he left a grey patch on the ceiling or put his foot through a window, it’d be Mr Suzuki or Mr Kawaguchi who’d have to commit ritual suicide to expunge the disgrace. Of course he’d have to commit ritual suicide too, to expunge the disgrace of having caused the disgrace that Mr Suzuki or Mr Kawaguchi was having to expunge, but that wasn’t the point, was it?
‘This is fun,’ muttered Mr Suzuki, a quarter of an hour or so later. ‘Sitting watching paint dry. My favourite.’
‘Watching paint dry,’ replied Mr Miroku reprovingly, ‘is of course a recognised exercise designed to instil in the novice the virtues of patience and the ultimate self-awareness that can only be reached through intensive meditation. It’s only when you can look at a wet skirting-board and see in it a microcosm of the slow but relentless unfolding of the Triple Path that you ever really come to appreciate the Oneness of Being and the merits of non-drip gloss.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Akira, dabbing a spot of spilt paint out of the carpet with a cloth dipped in white spirit. ‘And what does non-drip gloss stand for?’
‘You’d be amazed,’ replied Mr Hiroshige, stifling a yawn. ‘Perhaps later, as and when you’ve advanced far enough in the—’
‘He means there’s the ceiling in the outside lay to do next,’ Mr Suzuki explained. ‘And when you’ve done that, the garden gate could do with another coat.’
Mr Akira’s shoulders sagged a little. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And all this painting and decorating’s going to train me to shatter a hundred bricks with one blow of my hand, is it?’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Miroku, wiping orange juice off his hands on to his trousers. ‘At least, it ought to open your eyes to the fundamental principle that all actions are interrelated, and that the fall of a leaf from a cherry tree in Kyoto is every bit as significant in the Great Scheme as the death of an emperor or the fall of a mighty empire. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if you’re looking for an all-round exercise in cosmic awareness augmentation, it’s the best there is, bar ironing.’
‘Ironing?’
Mr Miroku nodded. ‘Ironing,’ he said. ‘A more graphic demonstration of the interplay of hard and soft and hot and cold would be difficult to imagine.’
‘Whereas washing up,’ Mr Suzuki pointed out, ‘exactly reproduces in miniature the cyclical nature of death and rebirth, with the washing-up liquid neatly symbolising the purifying effect of Enlightenment. Watch out, you’re leaving hairs in the paint.’
Before Mr Akira could ask about the symbolic meaning of moulting DIY store bargain brushes, the door opened and Snow White strode in.
The important word there is ‘strode’. True striding is a dying art, and unless you’ve been bred to it and practised assiduously since childhood, you’ll find it difficult to carry off with any conviction unless you pull a hamstring or wear tight, heavily starched stretch jeans. Up till now, Snow White had shown no signs whatsoever of striding; if she’d tried it, she’d probably have tripped over the hem of her cute little gingham frock and fallen flat on her face. But this time, the samurai couldn’t help noticing, she wasn’t wearing the cute little gingham frock.
‘You lot,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’
The samurai tried not to stare. True, skin-tight black leather suited her, in a faintly bizarre kind of way, but Mr Miroku couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t a bit hot and sweaty on a fine spring day. As for young Mr Akira, the fact that he’d put his foot in the tin of non-drip gloss and hadn’t apparently noticed told you all you needed to know about his reaction.
‘About time you started pulling your weight around here,’ Snow White continued, and her seams creaked disturbingly as she folded her arms across her hitherto unsuspected chest. ‘Right then, you lot, bring me the head of the wicked queen. Oh, come on,’ she added, as the samurai stared at her in bewilderment, ‘you’re trained professional killers, and it’s not as if I’d asked you to do anything difficult. Or do you want a diagram with a dotted line marked “cut here”?’
‘Um,’ said Mr Miroku, quickly chewing up an inconvenient mouthful of orange, ‘I’m not quite sure that I understood you correctly. You want us to, er, murder someone.’
‘That’s right.’
‘A defenceless woman.’
‘You could say that, I suppose.’
‘A defenceless woman who’s also our rightful queen-empress.’
‘That’s her. Look, if it’s the beheading bit that’s bothering you, I’ll settle for a quick strangling and a duly notarised copy of the death certificate, I’m not fussy about tradition and stuff like that. Just so long as she’s dead, I couldn’t care less.’
‘Excuse me,’ Mr Akira interrupted, looking pointedly at a mark on the wall an inch or so above Snow White’s head, ‘but are we supposed to do stuff like that? I thought our job was more along the lines of protecting the weak and oppressed and generally going around being helpful and nice.’
Snow White sniggered unkindly. ‘Get real,’ she said, ‘you’re samurai. In case nobody told you when you joined up, that means you’re feudal warriors, duty bound to kill your overlord’s enemies without question or hesitation. Or did you think the bloody great big swords were in case you were ever called on to open a six-foot long envelope?’
Mr Suzuki closed his eyes, opened them again and licked his lips, which had become unusually dry. ‘I think the point that my young colleague is trying to make is that we’re only supposed to use our formidable fighting skills in a noble and worthy cause. Contract killing, on the other hand—’
‘You,’ Snow White growled, ‘shut up. Now, all of you,’ she added, ‘get your armour on and get moving, or I’ll chop you into bits and feed you to the goldfish. All right? Good.’
When she’d gone, the samurai gazed at each other with the same befuddled look as Moses might have worn on discovering that he’d made a mistake in reading what it said on the tablets and that he was now committed to leading his people forth into the Threatened Land.
‘There’s something funny going on,’ Mr Hiroshige said at last. ‘But I’m blowed if I know what it is.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Mr Akira. ‘We haven’t got a goldfish.’
There was a bleak silence; then Mr Suzuki shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe it’s some kind of loyalty test,’ he said. ‘After all, the sages tell us that in order to appreciate the ambivalent nature of the Way—’
‘Oh, shut up,’ the others chorused.