When they learned that Otake-san was dying, Nicholai and Mariko discontinued their romantic liaison, without discussion and most naturally. That universal burden of illogical shame that marks the adolescent Japanese prevented them from engaging in so life-embracing an activity as lovemaking while their teacher and friend was dying.
In result of one of those ironies of life that continue to surprise us, although experience insists that irony is Fate’s most common figure of speech, it was not until they ended their physical relationship that the household began to suspect them. While they had been engaged in their dangerous and exciting romance, fear of discovery had made them most circumspect in their public behavior toward one another. Once they were no longer guilty of shameful actions, they began to spend more time together, openly walking along the road or sitting in the garden; and it was only then that sly, if affectionate, rumors about them began to be signaled around the family through sidelong glances and lifted eyebrows.
Often, after practice games had been allowed to trail off inconclusively, they talked about what the future would hold, when the war was lost and their beloved teacher was gone. What would life be like when they were no longer members of the Otake household, when American soldiers occupied the nation? Was it true, as they had heard, that the Emperor would call upon them to die on the beaches in a last effort to repulse the invader? Would not such a death be preferable, after all, to life under the barbarians?
They were discussing such things when Nicholai was called by Otake-san’s youngest son and told that the teacher would speak with him. Otake-san was waiting in his private six-mat study, the sliding doors of which gave onto the little garden with its decoratively arranged vegetables. This evening its green and brown tones were muted by an unhealthy mist that had descended from the mountains. The air in the room was humid and cool, and the sweet smell of rotting leaves was balanced by the delicious acrid aroma of burning wood. And there was also the faint tone of mint in the air, for Otake-san still took the mint drops that had failed to control the cancer that was draining away his life.
“It is good of you to receive me, Teacher,” Nicholai said after several moments of silence. He did not like the formal sound of that, but he could find no balance between the affection and compassion he felt, and the native solemnity of the occasion. During the past three days, Otake-san had arranged long conversations with each of his children and students in turn; and Nicholai, his most promising apprentice, was the last.
Otake-san gestured to the mat beside him, where Nicholai knelt at right angles to the teacher in the polite position that permitted his own face to be read while it protected the privacy of the older man. Uncomfortable with the silence that endured several minutes, Nicholai felt impelled to fill with trivia. “Mist from the mountains is not common at this time of year, Teacher. Some say it is unhealthy. But it brings a new beauty to the garden and to…”
Otake-san lifted his hand and shook his head slightly. No time for this. “I shall speak in broad game plan, Nikko, recognizing that my generalizations will be tempered by small exigencies of localized play and conditions.”
Nicholai nodded and remained silent. It was the teacher’s practice to speak in terms of Gô whenever he dealt with anything of importance. As General Kishikawa had once said, for Otake-san life was a simplistic metaphor for Gô.
“Is this a lesson, Teacher?”
“Not exactly.”
“A chastisement, then?”
“It may appear to you to be so. It is really a criticism. But not only of you. A criticism… an analysis… of what I perceive to be a volatile and dangerous mixture—you and your future life. Let us begin with the recognition that you are a brilliant player.” Otake-san lifted his hand. “No. Do not bother with formulas of polite denial. I have seen brilliance of play equal to yours, but never in a man of your age, and not in any player now living. But there are other qualities than brilliance in the successful person, so I shall not burden you with unqualified compliments. There is something distressing in your play, Nikko. Something abstract and unkind. Your play is somehow inorganic… unliving. It has the beauty of a crystal, but lacks the beauty of a blossom.”
Nicholai’s ears were warming, but he gave no outward sign of embarrassment or anger. To chastise and correct is the right, the duty of a teacher.
“I am not saying that your play is mechanical and predictable, for it is seldom that. What prevents it from being so is your astonishing…”
Otake-san drew a sudden breath and held it, his eyes staring unseeing toward the garden. Nicholai kept his gaze down, not wishing to embarrass his teacher by observing his struggle with pain. Long seconds passed, and still Otake-san did not breathe. Then, with a little gasp, he unhitched his breath from the notch at which he had held it and slowly let it out, testing for pain all along the exhalation. The crisis passed, and he took two long, thankful breaths through his open mouth. He blinked several times and…
“…what prevents your play from being mechanical and predictable is your astonishing audacity, but even that flair is tainted with the unhuman. You play only against the situation on the board; you deny the importance—the existence even—of your opponent. Have you not yourself told me that when you are in one of your mystic transports, from which you gamer rest and strength, you play without reference to your adversary? There is something devilish in this. Something cruelly superior. Arrogant, even. And at odds with your goal of shibumi. I do not bring this to your attention for your correction and improvement, Nikko. These qualities are in your bones and unchangeable. And I am not even sure I would have you change if you could; for these that are your flaws are also your strengths.”
“Do we speak of Gô only, Teacher?”
“We speak in terms of Gô.” Otake-san slipped his hands into his kimono and pressed the palm against his stomach while he took another mint drop. “For all your brilliance, dear student, you have vulnerabilities. There is your lack of experience, for instance. You waste concentration thinking your way through problems that a more experienced player reacts to by habit and memory. But this is not a significant weakness. You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience—twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled.” Otake-san smiled faintly. “Recall also that the old must make much of their experience. It is all they have left.”
For a time, Otake-san’s eyes were dull with inner focus as he gazed upon the drab garden, its features disintegrating in the mist. With an effort he pulled his mind from eternal things to continue his last lesson. “No, it is not your lack of experience that is your greatest flaw. It is your disdain. Your defeats will not come from those more brilliant than you. They will come from the patient, the plodding, the mediocre.”
Nicholai frowned. This was consonant with what Kishikawa-san had told him as they walked along the cherry trees of the Kajikawa.
“Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring—but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and Nô withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down.”