“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?”
“We drill at school,” Gen said. “We train on Harry.”
The customer asked Harry, “They train on you, yet you’re still here? You have the quality of durability, if nothing else. Perhaps you have the makings of a soldier after all. But I saw you once in a movie house. You seemed more interested in women.”
“He’s in love with Oharu,” Gen said.
“Is that true?” the customer asked Harry. “Are you in love with a woman?”
Harry felt the color in his cheeks betray him. Held straight out, the sword trembled.
“It’s one thing to have a woman,” the customer said. “It’s another to be in love with a woman. To love a weaker person, what does that do for you? To mix inferior steel in a sword, does that make the sword weaker or stronger? Weaker…or…stronger?” He pulled back his sleeve and placed the inside of his wrist under the sword. Harry tried to hold the sword up, if not still, but his shoulders ached; the blade grew heavier and began to dip. Gen got to his knees to see. The blade’s edge just touched the customer’s skin, and a drop of blood circled his wrist. He didn’t flinch. He said, “True love can only exist between equals.”
As Harry let the blade fall, the customer neatly slipped his hand out of the way, took the sword and stepped back for more room. Sword at the perpendicular, he took a position of balance, knees slightly bent, looking right, left, making a complete turn, the blade slicing down, then on a horizontal arc, his kimono swirling around marble-smooth, muscular legs in the sort of dancelike move Harry had seen on the Kabuki stage and in samurai films, but never before with such a sense of ease and genuine menace, of an animal casually indulging in the briefest display of its claws. Harry knew in that instant the difference between being inside and outside the cage of a bear. The customer finished with a snap of the sword called “the flipping off of blood,” slipped the blade under his arm as if sheathing it and bowed to Harry.
“Excuse me, that was impolite. Worse, it was melodramatic.”
“No, it was wonderful,” Gen said. “It was the real thing.”
“Not yet,” the customer said, “but in time we will see the real thing. It is unavoidable.”
“He’s with the Kwantung army,” Gen told Harry. “That means Manchuria. They’ll see action there.”
“We should be going,” Harry said. “Let’s go, Gen.”
Gen said, “It would be rude to leave.”
The customer replaced the sword on the wall. He drew Gen up by the hand. “No, your friend is right, and there are more important things I’m supposed to be doing than entertaining every urchin who comes off the street.”
“Can I come again?”
“Perhaps you’ll deliver another print.”
“You’ve been very kind.” Harry tugged Gen toward the door.
Gen moved stiffly, reluctantly slipping his feet into his geta. The customer seemed to dismiss the two boys without as much as a nod, but as they stepped over the threshold, he told them to wait, went to the vase and bestowed on Gen the single chrysanthemum. Gen accepted the flower as if it were a sword itself, and although his thick black hair fell forward when he bowed, Harry saw a violet blush of pleasure spread across his cheeks.
HARRY FOUND KATO at the Folies, in the balcony with the manager watching a final act called “Amusing Violin.” The manager wore a greasy boater and snickered through an overbite stained from cigarettes and tea. He and Harry had never gotten along since the day Harry first stumbled into the dressing room. Onstage, a comic musician playing “The Flight of the Bumblebee” was afflicted with a rubbery bow and ridiculously overlong European tails that flopped around his feet. His bow caught in the strings, flew offstage like an arrow and was retrieved by Oharu in a skimpy one-piece and net stockings. She handed the sagging bow to the comedian. As he watched her stride away, his bow stiffened. The manager laughed in and out like a donkey.
Kato said to Harry, “I hear you let Gen deliver the print to the customer. I told you that only you should take it.”
“Nothing happened. He seemed to like Gen more than me.”
“Why not? Gen is a far more attractive boy than you. You are a mongrel, and Gen is the ideal.”
Flustered by Oharu, the comedian reached into his violin case and brought out a fan to cool himself. Not enough. He brought out an electric fan with a long cord and asked a musician in the orchestra pit to plug it in. The comedian directed its breeze up and down his body and along the bow.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Kato said.
Harry recounted the scene at the customer’s house. Meanwhile, onstage, the comedian started “The Bumblebee” again but noticed a piece of paper drifting by and, in the midst of playing, speared it with his bow. It was sticky paper. It stuck to his bow, his shoe, his hand, finally to his forehead, and he played while blowing the paper up from his eyes. The audience around Harry laughed so hard they stuffed handkerchiefs into their mouths.
“This is great stuff,” the manager said.
Kato said, “He gave Gen a white chrysanthemum?”
“A gift.”
“And the customer, Harry. Tell me again, did he introduce himself?”
“No.”
“Then I will tell you. His name is Ishigami. Lieutenant Ishigami is a rising man in the army. He is the natural son of a royal prince, no one is quite sure who, so he has the protection of the court and a stipend from the imperial household. He could have gone into banking or writing poetry, instead he chose the army. He joined the Kwantung army so that he would be sure to come under fire from bandits or Russians or Chinese, and he acquitted himself so well that admirers call him a virtual samurai. So you might ask why he is here in Tokyo. Because, Harry, Ishigami is in disgrace. A board of inquiry is looking into the accusation that he is one of a circle of junior army officers agitating against the civilian government. Ishigami says his allegiance is to the emperor, not to politicians. This has made him even more popular with the army, and with patriotic groups in general, but while the board of inquiry meets, he is forced to lie low and waste his time with the likes of you and me and, apparently, your friend Gen. That’s why I wanted to send you. Ishigami wouldn’t touch you. You’re not his type.”