Nicholai’s imagination was galvanized by the concept of shibumi. No other ideal had ever touched him so. “How does one achieve this shibumi, sir?”
“One does not achieve it, one… discovers it. And only a few men of infinite refinement ever do that. Men like my friend Otake-san.”
“Meaning that one must learn a great deal to arrive at shibumi?”
“Meaning, rather, that one must pass through knowledge and arrive at simplicity.”
From that moment, Nicholai’s primary goal in life was to become a man of shibumi; a personality of overwhelming calm. It was a vocation open to him while, for reasons of breeding, education, and temperament, most vocations were closed. In pursuit of shibumi he could excel invisibly, without attracting the attention and vengeance of the tyrannical masses.
Kishikawa-san took from beneath the tea table a small sandalwood box wrapped in plain cloth and put it into Nicholai’s hands. “It is a farewell gift, Nikko. A trifle.”
Nicholai bowed his head in acceptance and held the package with great tenderness; he did not express his gratitude in inadequate words. This was his first conscious act of shibumi.
Although they spoke late into their last night together about what shibumi meant and might mean, in the deepest essential they did not understand one another. To the General, shibumi was a kind of submission; to Nicholai, it was a kind of power.
Both were captives of their generations.
Nicholai sailed for Japan on a ship carrying wounded soldiers back for family leave, awards, hospitalization, a life under the burden of mutilation. The yellow mud of the Yangtze followed the ship for miles out to sea, and it was not until the water began to blend from khaki to slate blue that Nicholai unfolded the simple cloth that wrapped Kishikawa-san’s farewell gift. Within a fragile sandalwood box, swathed in rich paper to prevent damage, were two Gô ke of black lacquer worked with silver in the Heidatsu process. On the lids of the bowls, lakeside tea houses wreathed in mist were implied, nestling against the shores of unstated lakes. Within one bowl were black Nichi stones from Kishiu. Within the other, white stones of Miyazaki clam shell… lustrous, curiously cool to the touch in any weather.
No one observing the delicate young man standing at the rail of the rusty freighter, his hooded green eyes watching the wallow and plunge of the sea as he contemplated the two gifts the General had given him—these Gô ke, and the lifelong goal of shibumi —would have surmised that he was destined to become the world’s most highly paid assassin.
Washington
The First Assistant sat back from his control console and puffed out a long sigh as he pushed his glasses up and lightly rubbed the tender red spots on the bridge of his nose. “It’s going to be difficult getting reliable information out of Fat Boy, sir. Each input source offers conflicting and contradictory data. You’re sure he was born in Shanghai?”
“Reasonably, yes.”
“Well, there’s nothing on that. In a chronological sort, the first I come up with has him living in Japan.”
“Very well. Start there, then!”
The First Assistant felt he had to defend himself from the irritation in Mr. Diamond’s voice. “It’s not as easy as you might think, sir. Here’s an example of the kind of garble I’m getting. Under the rubric of ‘languages spoken,’ I get Russian, French, Chinese, German, English, Japanese, and Basque. Basque? That can’t be right, can it?”
“It is right.”
“Basque? Why would anyone learn to speak Basque?”
“I don’t know. He studied it while he was in prison.”
“Prison, sir?”
“You’ll come to it later. He did three years in solitary confinement.”
“You… you seem to be uniquely familiar with the data, sir.”
“I’ve kept an eye on him for years.”
The First Assistant considered asking why this Nicholai Hel had received such special attention, but he thought better of it, “All right, sir. Basque it is. Now how about this? Our first firm data come from immediately after the war, when it seems he worked for the Occupation Forces as a cryptographer and translator. Now, assuming he left Shanghai when we believe he did, we have six years unaccounted for. The only window Fat Boy gives me on that doesn’t seem to make any sense. It suggests that he spent those six years studying some kind of game. A game called Gô—whatever that is.”
“I believe that’s correct.”
“Can that be? Throughout the entire Second World War, he spent his time studying a board game?” The First Assistant shook his head. Neither he nor Fat Boy was comfortable with conclusions that did not proceed from solid linear logic. And it was not logical that a mauve-card international assassin would have passed five or six years (Christ! They didn’t even know exactly how many!) learning to play some silly game!
Japan
For nearly five years Nicholai lived within the household of Otake-san; a student, and a member of the family. Otake of the Seventh Dan was a man of two contradictory personalities; in competition he was cunning, cold-minded, noted for his relentless exploitation of flaws in the opponent’s play or mental toughness. But at home in his sprawling, rather disorganized household amid his sprawling extended family that included, besides his wife, father, and three children, never fewer than six apprenticed pupils, Otake-san was paternal, generous, even willing to play the clown for the amusement of his children and pupils. Money was never plentiful, but they lived in a small mountain village with few expensive distractions, so it was never a problem. When they had less, they lived on less; when they had more, they spent it freely.
None of Otake-san’s children had more than average gifts in the art of Gô. And of his pupils, only Nicholai possessed that ineffable constellation of talents that makes the player of rank: a gift for conceiving abstract schematic possibilities; a sense of mathematical poetry in the light of which the infinite chaos of probability and permutation is crystallized under the pressure of intense concentration into geometric blossoms; the ruthless focus of force on the subtlest weakness of an opponent.
In time, Otake-san discovered an additional quality in Nicholai that made his play formidable: In the midst of play, Nicholai was able to rest in profound tranquility for a brief period, then return to his game freshminded.
It was Otake-san who first happened upon the fact that Nicholai was a mystic.
Like most mystics, Nicholai was unaware of his gift, and at first he could not believe that others did not have similar experiences. He could not imagine life without mystic transport, and he did not so much pity those who lived without such moments as he regarded them as creatures of an entirely different order.
Nicholai’s mysticism came to light later one afternoon when he was playing an exercise game with Otake-san, a very tight and classic game in which only vaguest nuances of development separated their play from textbook models. Partway through the third hour, Nicholai felt the gateway open to him for rest and oneness, and he allowed himself to expand into it. After a time, the feeling dissolved, and Nicholai sat, motionless and rested, wondering vaguely why the teacher was delaying in making an obvious placement. When he looked up, he was surprised to find Otake-san’s eyes on his face and not on the Gô ban.